


The Return of the Hardy Boys

by ericklyon



Category: Hardy Boys - Franklin W. Dixon
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-13
Updated: 2020-06-17
Packaged: 2021-03-03 19:35:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 66,473
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24700924
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ericklyon/pseuds/ericklyon
Summary: In homage to the original spirit of the Hardy Boys series, this copyrighted novel, The Return of the Hardy Boys, speculates on the career paths Frank and Joe might have taken had they come of age in this very challenging world.
Relationships: Chet & Eva Morton, Frank Hardy/Callie Shaw, Joe Hardy/Iola Morton, Tony & Gina Prito





	1. The Disappearing Harbor

**The Return**

**of the**

**Hardy Boys**

**Eric K. Lyon**

This is a work of fiction.

Names, characters, places and incidents are

either the product of the author’s imagination

or are used fictitiously.

Any resemblance to actual persons,

events or locales is purely coincidental.

Copyright © 2020 Eric K. Lyon

All Rights Reserved

CHAPTER 1

**The Disappearing Harbor**

**Twenty years earlier.**

**Newport, Oregon**

“Better break out the sunscreen, chums!” Joe Hardy jested, pointing dramatically to the west.

There, the setting sun, for just a moment, found a crack in the marine layer and flashed once like a lighthouse beacon before it slipped beyond the horizon.

Frank Hardy laughed and said, “I guess after a day of fog, overcast and squalls, that glimmer amounts to a heat wave.”

Tony Prito, at the helm of his beloved _Napoli II,_ was less jocular. “I’m not worried about sunburn. But I am worried about these troughs.”

The college-age boys had just cleared the twin jetties at the opening of Yaquina Bay, and their ride became noticeably rougher on the open ocean. They were dressed for the occasion, in slickers and life jackets. A new canopy on Tony’s speedboat would shield them from spray and possible rain, but the weather was not ideal for a nighttime recon mission.

“Our smuggler suspect,” Tony continued, “picked a poor night for a 12-mile rendezvous. It’s high tide, there’s a full moon that we won’t be able to see, and the radar shows an intense cell tracking this way from the south.”

“How long do we have?” Frank asked.

“Long enough to get out to the ship, but probably not to get home,” Tony said with concern.

Frank became serious. “We take no risks tonight. If the weather gets any nastier, we break off our pursuit.”

“Agreed,” Tony said emphatically. “I owe it to Gina and the bambino, especially when you two sleuths are not even officially on a case.”

Tony had been lured westward two years earlier during a Prito family vacation to Oregon during summer break after high school.

Falling in love with the Newport marina and bayfront, Tony signed on as a deckhand with one of the major charter boat firms, and now in his second year had progressed to associate skipper status. Tony also fell in love with a local girl who shared Italian heritage. Their son, Gianni, was now nearly a year old.

This summer break, while the Hardy brothers were vacationing with Tony and Gina, overheard conversation on the docks and an unusual request for a charter had led the three into a mystery as Frank and Joe investigated possible illegal smuggling.

“And,” Tony continued, “Callie and Iola might object to losing their prospective husbands two weeks before the big joint wedding!”

“That does put things in perspective,” Joe said.

Frank added, “But we aren’t going to engage our quarry. We just want the registration name of the foreign ship, so the Coast Guard and Customs will take our hunches more seriously.”

The young men lapsed into silence. Tony kept the charter boat carrying their would-be passenger, Hamza, in visual range. 

The Hardys had first noticed the out-of-place figure on the Newport charter docks, a swarthy man carrying a briefcase. They overheard in passing his inquiries about chartering a boat for a nighttime cruise, and the skipper’s reply that the man would need to request it through the company’s office.

The next day, Hamza had stopped by Tony’s boat, still inquiring about booking a charter. The Hardys’ mental checklist quickly tabulated the man’s profile. Well-educated. Impeccably groomed. English a second language. Over-dressed. North African, possibly Libyan. Merchant background. Evasive when it came to specifics. A practiced liar.

More concerning was his attempt to engage Tony without his company’s knowledge, including asking if Tony had his own boat. Time constraints required a link-up with his firm’s ship offshore in five days, the man explained, for a shipment he needed for medical research. Just a small consignment, less than 100 pounds, they were told.

When the man offered to double the normal charter fee, then treble it, the Hardys asked if it involved drugs of any sort. Hamza laughed at the suggestion, saying the chemicals were for DNA research and were securely stored in three airtight cylinders. “Name your own price,” was his final offer. Tony declined, citing again that bookings had to be done through the front office.

The next day, while Tony was leaving the marina for a fishing trip, he spotted Hamza at the public marina talking to a former skipper whose drinking problems had ended his career with Tony’s company. The Hardys and Tony visited the man’s berth later that day and enticed a slightly sloshy Stu Haas into revealing more than he intended.

“We’re looking for Hamza,” Tony had begun from dockside, “about a charter he was interested in.”

“Already got it, boys,” Haas replied with satisfaction. He sat in a deck chair, grizzled and unkempt, with a beer in one hand and a cigarette in the other.

“Whale watching?” Frank Hardy asked.

Haas hesitated. “Nah, some night fishing.”

“At 12 miles out?” Joe asked.

Haas studied the three friends. He pointed to Tony and said, “You know, I think I’ve seen _you_ around, but these other two are strangers. What do they do for a living?”

“College students,” Tony answered.

“Maybe,” Haas said doubtfully. “But it ain’t any of your business, so why don’t you all move along.”

“You might be taking a legal risk,” Frank said.

Haas rose unsteadily from his chair and walked closer to the railing of his boat. In an undertone he said, “Look, charters are slow right now. I got bills to pay. This is just a charter, that’s all.”

Tony said, “Are you sure?”

Haas glared at the friends. “Live and let live, boys. Emphasis on the _live_ , if you get my drift,” he said in a biting tone. “Now get out of here!”

The Hardys had tried to interest the authorities in the matter, but with no evidence to present, no action was taken. The Hardys decided to use their knowledge of the rendezvous date to find just that evidence.

The swells were slowing the progress of the larger boat, allowing the _Napoli II_ to ride the rough water at a more agreeable speed, but the weather radar showed the heavy rain was not veering from its collision course _._ Scattered rain was further decreasing visibility.

“The stationery blip out around 12 miles has begun to move closer to shore,” Tony said about his guess for a likely ship candidate on his extended range radar.

“They are also probably aware of the coming storm, and want to drop their load sooner,” Frank said, “and come in under cover of the marine alerts.”

“That’s better for us, too,” said Joe.

“Except,” Tony added in a worried voice, “the weather radar now shows the rain intensity has moved from yellow to solid red. We’re in for a serious soaking.”

“Should we abort?” Joe wondered.

“That’s up to Tony,” Frank said. “Our target is apparently keeping his appointment. So, weather permitting, I hate to give up a chance to identify that ship.”

“We’re really pushing our luck, guys,” Tony admitted. “But the incoming ship looks on radar to be running full speed ahead and Haas’ boat will be reaching it fairly soon. Let’s give it a few more minutes.”

Frank noted the Coast Guard weather advisory had now been updated to a warning.

The wind had picked up and the _Napoli II_ was pitching and rolling with the increasing swells. Tony could just make out the running lights of Haas’ vessel when suddenly a searchlight from the freighter flickered in the distance.

Using Tony’s high powered binoculars, Frank could now see the faint outline of the ship. “There it is!” he shouted.

Tony’s boat pressed forward in the wet darkness as the freighter’s searchlight now steadied as it guided Haas’ boat near the looming dark hulk. 

“Just a little closer, Tony, please. I still can’t make out the registry or name,” Frank said.

As the chums approached the freighter, additional lights played about the lurching ocean as Haas maneuvered beneath a barrel-shaped package being lowered on multiple ropes. 

“Damn!” Frank blurted. “It’s in Arabic. No, no wait, it’s in English underneath. Yes! I can read it now. The name is _[Tripolitania](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tripolitania)_.”

“OK!” Tony yelled, “can we get out of here now?”

“Let’s go!” Joe encouraged.

“Thanks, Tony, for sticking with us!” Frank added.

Tony turned the boat toward an uncertain shore to the east. Just then, a searchlight played about their area, finally splashing repeatedly across their boat. 

Moments later they heard the first reports of live fire weapons.

“My God, they’re firing at us,” Joe screamed as he was flung back in his seat as Tony opened up his engine. The _Napoli II_ was able to get enough momentum to skip over the top of several waves as it streaked away from the pan of the searchlights.

“Tony, patch me through to the Coast Guard!” Frank shouted as he took the receiver’s microphone, and Tony opened a channel for Frank.

Now using his own spotlight, Tony struggled to keep the boat from taking a swell broadside in the swirling seas.

“Coast Guard, this is the _Napoli II,_ ” Frank said in a frantic voice.

“Go ahead, _Napoli_.”

“We are five or six miles off the coast. We just witnessed likely smuggling, with contraband being offloaded from a freighter named _Tripolitania_ onto a charter boat named _Cluster Duck_.

“Cluster _what?_ ”

“Cluster Duck, out of Newport, captain is Stu Haas. We are taking some live fire. Can you respond?”

“We can’t respond. This is the Depoe Bay station. What is your position? Are you also from Newport?”

“We are,” Frank said.

“We are advising all craft near us to immediately return to port. If you’ve seen the weather radar, you’ll know why we can’t respond—and why _you_ will not be able to return to Newport at this time.” 

Tony Prito and the Hardys looked at each other with varying degrees of anxiety, guilt and outright fear.

“Roger, Depoe Bay. What are the conditions there?”

“Degrading rapidly. Winds up to 40 miles per hour, steady rain, and high surf. Waves are splashing onto Highway 101. We have helped several charter craft through our narrow channel, but it will not be safe to put to sea again until this front passes—and that could be most of the night. By the way, who is your captain?”

Frank handed the microphone to Tony, who replied, “Tony Prito here. Is this Chief Warrant Officer Booth?

“It is! Hey, Tony, what the devil are you doing out on a night like this?”

“Just showing the sights to a couple old friends,” Tony said with a listless laugh.

“Did they change the name of your charter boat?”

“No, we’re in my speedboat, all 26’ of it.”

“Holy Toledo! You better make like a shepherd and get the flock out of there. We’ll have the channel guide lights on, if there is visibility when you get here. Please, Tony, stay in touch!”

“Roger, Chief.”

Tony turned to Frank and asked him to slide over and take the helm. After switching positions, Tony made a cellphone call to his wife, Gina, and the Hardys could tell by Tony’s comments she was overwrought with dread. Her Newport neighborhood had lost power and the winds were downing tree limbs. Tony reassured her they were almost to Depoe Bay and would wait there until the storm had passed.

“I promise to call the minute we reach the marina. Love you, Gina. Molto, _molto!”_

To the Hardys he said, “That is, if I can find that freaking narrow opening in the world’s smallest harbor.”

The thrashing night was close upon the _Napoli II_. Tony could see nothing beyond the limited arc of the boat’s spotlight. He had the hollow realization that without his radar, he had no true idea of compass points. The sky was uniformly dark. Finding Depoe Bay harbor would have been unlikely without navigational assistance. Finding the entry channel itself would be an additional challenge. But, for now, he struggled to keep the boat from being swamped by the relentless swells.

Even with the rain canopy, the three young men were thoroughly soaked, and being buffeted by the wind and waves.

Frank and Joe sat with grim faces, holding on with straining grips, both silently wishing Tony’s expertise in these waters would lead to a successful return to a safe port. And both wondering if they had made a poor choice in pursuing Hamza—one they now realized impacted so many other people. 

“Coast Guard, this is the _Napoli II_ ,” Tony said into his microphone.

“Depoe Bay Coast Guard, Chief Booth here. Is that you Tony?”

“It is.”

“What’s your situation?”

“Zero visibility. Flying by instruments. Trying not to get flipped by these swells. What’s it look like there?”

“Rough, Tony,” Chief Booth said, “but it’s still your best shot. The storm is such a massive cell that there’s really no place for you to go to ride this out. Is that you about a mile off?”

“That’s what my machine tells me, but it feels like a hundred miles.”

“Stay the course, Tony. The wind has shifted a bit, and the surge is running along the sea wall toward the breakwaters, so you’ll need to prepare for that southerly push.”

“Thanks for the info, Chief. I’ve only been through the channel a few times—and never in high seas.”

“Honestly, Tony, you’ll need to do the best skippering of your life to avoid the breakwaters.”

“Roger, Chief. Then I’ll damn well do my best!”

For the next half hour Tony battled to make progress toward shore, riding up and down troughs, constantly correcting his course against turbulent currents, always two steps forward and one back, until finally Frank cried out, “Do I hear surf?”

Soon all three young men could hear the booming breakers as they pounded the volcanic cliffs of Depoe Bay.

“We must be close now,” Frank shouted.

“Yes. Now it gets tricky!” Tony shouted back.

“Coast Guard, this is the _Napoli II_ , coming in!” Tony said into his microphone.

“Be safe, Tony!” answered Chief Booth.

“Joe!” Tony shouted over the noise, “get the extra spotlight in the storage compartment. Give me some light to port so I can avoid the breakwater wall!”

Joe knelt to open the hatch, and inside found a neon yellow rechargeable light. As he lifted it out, the boat took a side hit from a swell, and the craft tilted precariously, spilling water inside. Joe was thrown against the gunwale, nearly jettisoning him, and the impact left him momentarily breathless. Then he saw the spotlight floating on the outgoing water. He scrambled to reach it, lunging at it as it was swept past him—and missed. He twisted his body around and made a last effort, but the light was just out of his frantic reach—but to his surprise, two of his fingers had unknowingly snagged the safety lanyard. As the outflow clutched at the light, Joe fought the tugging and at last had both hands on the lanyard and yanked the spotlight back from the ravenous sea.

Joe settled into his seat, securely lashed the light to his left wrist, then turned on its bright LED beam and shone it forward at a 45° angle. He noticed Frank giving him a thumbs up for his efforts..

The noise of the surf had increased, but there was no sight yet of the shoreline cliffs. Tony seemed to be angling his boat to starboard and as the breakers roared it seemed the boat was pummeled from several direction simultaneously. Joe’s light suddenly illuminated a tumult of water only yards ahead. As the wave withdrew, dark basalt rock shined in the beam. Another wave smashed against the cliffside, and this time when the wave withdrew in a flood of white water, Joe’s spotlight revealed a sickening sight: directly ahead was the base of the 20’ high breakwater wall.

“Tony! The breakwater!” Joe cried out.

“Hang on!” Tony shouted as he also saw the reinforced concrete barrier that could splinter the _Napoli II_ upon contact.

Fortuitously, the southward storm surge swept the boat along, and not into, the cliff. Joe watched in utter helplessness as they were carried just past the blunt front of the breakwater wall, close enough that he might have reached out to touch the deadly structure.

Dimly the twin navigation lights to either side of the channel now became visible, though additional danger waited on the cliff faces just south of the narrow opening if Tony was not able to turn the boat.

Tony gave the _Napoli II_ full throttle and the boat careened back toward the opening. Tony had just pointed the bow toward the channel when an enormous wave lifted the craft. All three lads hollered in roller coaster release as the wave’s force was amplified as it raced through the tight dog-leg curve of the harbor entry.

Though Tony tried to direct their path, the _Napoli II_ was at the mercy of the surge, and the young men gritted their teeth and braced themselves for impact—until at last their boat emerged unscathed from under the bridge arches and into the small harbor.

A joyous cheer went up from the chums, with all the relief of reaching the end of the world’s most dangerous water slide.

“You did it, Tony!” Frank said, slapping Tony on the back.

“Great work, skipper! You saved our lives,” Joe added.

Quietly, Frank said to his friend, “We should never have asked that of you, Tony.”

As the wave’s force dissipated, the boat’s momentum carried them directly ahead toward the two large Coast Guard vessels moored in the station’s boathouse. Behind stood the station’s administration building. Slanting heavy rain could be seen beneath the many light standards in the facility. The more compelling sight, however, was Chief Warrant Officer Booth on the adjacent dock, his rain gear shiny in the light, applauding Tony’s accomplishment, and indicating an open berth for the _Napoli II_.

Over steaming mugs of hot cocoa in the Coast Guard office—after each made a reassurance call to their significant other—the three friends related their information to Chief Booth and the officer on duty while their slickers drip-dried in the mud room.

The young men sensed their actions appeared reckless to the weathered sailors, who were equally relieved to have avoided a tragedy.

“We will pass your information on to Customs,” the officer said, “and from your description it may indeed turn out to be relevant. But,” he added with a laugh, “you fellas sure picked a bad night for a cruise.”

Tony and the Hardys readily agreed.

The nearby radar operator spoke up, “Lieutenant, that target heading south has turned. Looks like the storm is sending the craft our way.”

“Sounds like trouble,” the lieutenant replied.

Tony said, “That must be Stu Haas.”

As if to confirm, the operations specialist called out that he was receiving a call from the _Cluster Duck_. 

“Put it on speaker,” the lieutenant said.

“Coast Guard! _Cluster Duck_ here. Taking on water. Headed for Depoe Bay Harbor.”

“Roger, _Cluster Duck_ , we read you. Who is your captain?”

“It’s just me, Stu Haas from Newport. We’re in real trouble out here.”

“Roger, skipper,” said the operations specialist. “Treacherous night. How many passengers?”

“Just one.”

“Did you link up with a freighter earlier?”

“Freighter? Don’t know nothing about any freighter. Can you help us make the channel?”

“Sorry, skipper. We’re ordered to remain in port. Safety protocols.”

“What about my safety?” Haas yelled back.

“We’ll do what we can from here,” the operations specialist replied.

“Can’t you meet me at the buoy and guide me in?”

The lieutenant rose and walked to the radio console. “Let me help with this,” he said to the specialist, and donned the offered headset.

“ _Cluster_ , this is Lieutenant Bunner, officer on duty. You are the only ship out in our area, but we did have a small craft make it safely through not long ago.”

“How small?”

“Pleasure craft. Under 30’.”

“Hell, if they made it in, I should be able to.”

“Visibility is basically nil,” the Lieutenant said. “You will need to allow for a strong southerly surge along the seawall. You’ve been through the chute before?”

“Hell, yes, but this freaking different. You guys need to be doing your job! Tow me in from the buoy!”

Lieutenant Bunner looked over at the group and shrugged his shoulders.

“Sorry, _Cluster,_ it wouldn’t help much if we smashed up trying to get out to you. We’re locked down until this storm passes and conditions improve. Can you ride it out offshore?”

“No! I’m taking on water. There’s a leak somewhere!”

In the background, a panicked male voice could be heard: “Tell them you are carrying very expensive cargo! They need to rescue us!”

Tony and the Hardys looked at each other. “Hamza!” Frank exclaimed, recognizing the accent.

“We’ve got valuable cargo,” Haas argued.

Lt. Bunner bristled. “ _Cluster_ , your lives are your valuable cargo. All lives. And we can’t risk even more lives.”

“Bastards!” Haas screamed.

Hamza again spoke up. “Tell them I will pay them any amount if they will rescue us!”

“My charter will make it worth your while!” Haas said.

The radar operator broke in. “The ship is approaching the buoy.”

Lt. Bunner said sternly, “Cluster, you’re almost on the buoy. Can you see it?”

“Hell no!”

The radar operator said, “Should be off his starboard bow in a quarter mile.”

“A quarter mile on starboard,” Lt. Bunner relayed.

“We need help!” Haas yelled.

Abruptly, Chief Booth stood up. “Gear up, boys. Let’s get a better vantage point.”

After retrieving their still-wet slickers, Tony and the Hardys rode with the Chief in a Coast Guard SUV up a small hill to Highway 101 where heavy waves were smashing against the volcanic rocks immediately below the roadway, sending spray onto the asphalt. 

Chief Booth stopped at the Whale Watching Center and the young men followed his quick steps to its observation deck. The two story building—with its octagonal whale viewing second story—overlooked the dangerous V-shaped confluence of the two concrete breakwaters situated at the northern opening of the harbor channel. Their intersecting point helped shield the narrow access to Depoe Bay Harbor—but in high seas it could be a terrifying potential danger.

With slanting rain slapping their faces, the four men scanned the darkness for Haas’ spotlight.

“The warning buoy is only a hundred yards off shore,” Chief Booth said, “and its red light has disappeared in this soup. So the boat will be scary close when we do finally see its lights.”

“I hope he remembers about the surge,” Tony said. “It almost got us.”

Leaning against the deck’s wall, the men steadied themselves against the wind and rain.

Joe called out, “Is that engine noise?”

“Might be,” Booth replied.

Soon the spotlight of the _Cluster_ became visible as it danced about in the heavy swells. The boat was north of the entrance to compensate for the surge, but its approach speed was excessive.

“The damn idiot is coming in too fast!” Booth said. “He’s trying to surf through the opening!”

Soon the outlines of the _Cluster_ became visible as the craft heaved toward the shore.

“Hard to starboard!” Frank shouted over the noise of the waves.

“Turn your boat!” Tony yelled.

Chief Booth, in a horrified voice, shouted, “He’s not going to make it!”

The _Cluster Duck_ was 20 yards north of the opening and closing fast when Stu Haas finally saw the navigation lights of the channel. His frantic turn to the right corrected his course away from the first breakwater—and sent him headlong into the deadly corner of the 20’ high second wall.

Compressed into millisecond came the sharp crack of breaking timbers and faint screams, then the boom of a powerful explosion that sent a fireball directly toward the rocky cliff just below the men. The flames raced up the cliffside as the four shocked observers ducked behind the wall just in time. For a moment, the explosion lit up the night, and when the men peered over the wall, the remaining fiery debris made clear that neither boat nor occupants survived.

“What in the world was that boat carrying?” Chief Booth marveled.

Frank said, “Certainly not the DNA chemicals we were told about.”

“Some of that flotsam will make it into the harbor, and we will be able to have it tested,” Chief Booth said. “Then we will all know.”

It was two days later that Tony called the Hardys in Bayport to share what Chief Booth had learned. Highly volatile chemical residues were found in the debris, “the kind that would be needed for a major terrorist bomb.”

“Your suspicions about Hamza were on the money,” Tony said.

“Thanks again for helping us, Tony,” Frank said. “But we have learned our lesson. We promise never to ask you for another cruise—unless it happens to be for whale watching.”

Tony laughed. “I like that charter better.”

“We didn’t want to alarm Callie and Iola,” Frank said, “so we left out some of the details. Joe and I have decided this will be our last private detective case.”

“Impossible!” Tony said.

“It’s true. The ladies deserve it. This story will remain untold.”

“I _so_ agree,” Tony said. “But, if it had been told, what would you have called it?”

“Naturally, _The Case of the Disappearing Harbor._ ”

“Roger on that!” Tony said with great feeling.


	2. Chapter 2

CHAPTER 2

**The Missing Chum**

**Present Day.**

**Depoe Bay, Oregon**

Joe Hardy, his short-cut blond hair speckled with gray, grinned as he looked out the upstairs window of the Hardy family vacation home. The cool blue Pacific was genuinely pacific this morning, and the sky overhead was clear with only stray high clouds. 

Tony Prito, over at the marina, would be pleased with the weather as he prepared his 40’ fishing boat for a whale-watching cruise for his old chums. And for Joe, it was the start of a much-needed week’s vacation with his family.

“How’s it going up there?” Iola’s cheerful voice called from the bottom of the stairs.

“Chet and Eva’s room is done,” Joe said as he looked down from the top of the stairs at his wife of twenty years. “Windows are open for fresh air and fresh sheets are on the bed, and the bathroom is spotless.”

“Thanks for your help,” Iola said. “I’m almost done with the dinner prep. The girls will start it when we head back to shore. I’m so excited to see my brother and sister-in-law.”

Illuminated in a shaft of sunlight from the skylight, Iola looked fetchingly domestic, shorts and tank top and one of her late mother’s favorite aprons around her waist. Her blue eyes looked especially mischievous.

“Your aqua top really brings out your eyes,” Joe said.

“Joe, you told me the same thing when we were 17. It was your first real compliment to me.”

“Still true. Anything else I can do?” Joe said, suddenly noticing the framed photo in the alcove next to the window. 

“No,” Iola said, “just load the van with whatever gear we’re taking on Tony’s boat.”

“Will do,” Joe said, turning his attention to the 8x10 of his brother Frank. Callie Hardy had taken the shot at her husband’s graduation from the FBI Academy nearly 15 years earlier.

Joe noted that Frank had changed little since that day, other than some graying at the temples which befitted a man of 45 years. Tall and broad-shouldered with his father’s dark hair and eyes, Frank stood at a lectern as he gave the valedictorian speech. Callie had caught him at just the right moment, and his roguish expression instantly reminded Joe of the comments that had triggered ripples of laughter across the audience. 

“One of my father’s favorite quotes was from Aristotle,” Joe recalled his brother’s comments, “to wit, _At his best, man is the noblest of all animals; separated from law and justice he is the worst._ ”

As the crowd of fellow officers and guests nodded in agreement, Frank added, “In closing, here is another quote that seems particularly relevant to our recent, shall we say, _demanding_ training: “ _Every step toward the goal of justice requires sacrifice, suffering, and struggle; the tireless exertions and passionate concern of dedicated individuals.”_

Frank, after a dramatic pause, said with exuberance, “Five months of tireless struggle, suffering and sacrifice at Quantico bears this out!” The crowd laughed in agreement.

Collecting his papers, Frank concluded, “Fellow agents, we have truly earned our badges. Congratulations to each of you. The final quote, by the way, was from Dr. Martin Luther King. Thank you.”

Joe set the photo back in its alcove and started down the stairs when suddenly he heard an ooh-gah horn.

“Chet’s early,” Iola hollered from the kitchen.

“He couldn’t have driven his roadster from Bayport!” Joe said.

“Let’s find out!” Iola exclaimed, quickly removing her apron and joining Joe at the door, calling out to her sister-in-law, “Callie! Chet and Eva are here.”

Joe opened the door tentatively, peering through the narrow gap but seeing nothing. As he opened it further he was startled by the raucous blare of the ooh-gah horn, and then the sudden appearance of Chet Morton, who with his wife had pressed themselves against the house to the right of the door. Chet carried a small battery-operated horn.

“Chet, you trickster! Incorrigible as ever,” Joe said as he grabbed his old friend in a bear hug.

“The roadster wouldn’t fit in the overhead bin, so I brought the horn to remind you of it,” Chet said.

Meanwhile, Iola had circled around the two chums and embraced Chet’s wife who had flowers in one hand and a bottle of champagne in the other.

“How was the drive down from Portland?” Iola asked.

“So beautiful,” Eva said, with just a slight trace of her south-of-the-border accent. She and Chet had met in college as pre-med students, and Chet had gone on to become a sports doctor and Eva a pediatrician. “I told him we should consider retiring here.”

“Could he ever leave the farm?” Iola said.

“I doubt it. But _I_ could give up the east coast winters!”

Chet theatrically pushed between the two women and said, “Who’s conspiring with my wife to give up the family farm?”

“Me, chubby,” Iola said, using one of Chet’s now outdated nicknames from their teenage years when Chet was famous for his prodigious eating habits. She hugged her brother, then held him at arm’s length to scan his frame. The early death of their mother due to heart disease had prompted both Chet and Iola into changing their diet and making regular visits to the gym. Their father’s passing had followed shortly after their mother’s, hastened by grief.

“You look great!” Iola said. 

“You, too, sis. Mom would be proud of us both.”

“How much do you weigh?” she asked.

“One seventy,” Chet said proudly. “How about you?”

“Oh, we never tell,” she said coyly. 

Chet draped an arm around her shoulder and added, “The perfect amount, sister.”

Abruptly, without a word being said, everyone turned as one toward the open doorway.

Callie stood there, holding her iPhone.

“Frank’s not coming,” she said, apprehension evident in her large brown eyes. **  
**

CHAPTER 3

**Thread the Needle**

“Not coming?” the group answered as one.

“What happened, Callie?” Joe asked, approaching his sister-in-law.

Callie shook her head uncertainly, her auburn braided ponytail bobbing questioningly, and held out the phone for Joe. “He texted me. He never texts me. He always calls, even if he has to leave a message. He hates texting.”

Joe looked at the screen and read it for the group: _Callie, my meeting is running long. Will have to miss the boat ride. Can’t call, bad reception here. Call you soon. F_

“Do you know where he was headed, Callie?” he said.

“His last call was from Umatilla, but that was two days ago.”

“If he was headed to eastern Washington, there are some thin reception areas out there,” Joe offered.

Callie shook her head distractedly. “No, Joe, the reception should be the same for texting or voice. So it doesn’t make sense he couldn’t call.”

“You might be right,” Joe said. “I’m not the expert on the cyber world like you and Frank are.” 

Frank had taken to heart Fenton Hardy’s surprise guidance for his sons during their undergrad years in college. “To make a difference, you will need to work inside the system. That’s where corruption affects everything else,” the famous private detective had said. Frank pursued a pre-law/criminology double major, and was courted by a high level contact in the bureau—who had worked with Fenton when he was a detective with the New York City police—to spearhead a new cyber security investigative branch. 

Callie, meanwhile, had earned a masters in computer science before her two sons were born. She did occasional consulting assignments and seemed to always be helping some group with their graphic design or web site.

“It doesn’t feel right,” Callie said. “Almost like it wasn’t actually sent by Frank.”

Iola hugged her supportively. “It will explain itself when he calls later,” she said. “Let’s have some coffee while the boys bring in the luggage.”

Chet and Joe clambered up the stairs, arms loaded with suitcases and carry-ons.

“You moving in?” Joe kidded as they unloaded their cargo in the guest room.

“Not yet. But the more I see of this house…”

“It would be nice to have you and Eva closer,” Joe said. “Come on, let’s say hi to the teenagers and then we’ll head down to the marina.”

The joint Hardy vacation home was located in Depoe Bay, just west of coast-hugging Highway 101 that flowed north and south along the beautifully varied Oregon shoreline. The two-story home was situated on a small triangle of land jutting into the Pacific. A fortunate cluster of nearly 30 homes were nestled amid the wind-swept fir trees.

The home’s novel design incorporated separate family wings connected by a communal kitchen, dining area and entertainment center, with a glass-enclosed patio sunroom looking out on the often roiling Pacific to the south. A detached two-level garage included many of the features the boys had grown up with in their Bayport home, from a small gym to a secure high-tech lab.

After Frank had accepted his FBI position in Portland as chief cyber investigator for the Pacific Northwest region, Joe followed Frank west after graduation from law school. He accepted a federal prosecutor position, also in Portland. Both families had vacationed several times with Tony Prito, one of the original Bayport chums, who lived on the coast in tourist-friendly Newport. The Hardys had their collective eye on purchasing a vacation retreat on the small peninsula in Depoe Bay, just north of Newport. The opportunity presented itself a year earlier when their realtor called to say the owners of the house on the point—the Hardys’ prime objective—had decided to sell.

Renovations and upgrades had taken almost six months, with the two families visiting often on weekends and holidays. 

Occasionally they were joined by the elder Hardys—Fenton, Laura and the irascible Aunt Gertrude—though Fenton’s new career occupied much of his time. As partner in a non-profit advocacy group, AmeriCo-op, he often took Laura with him on business trips.

“How are your parents and Aunt Gertrude?” Chet asked.

“Good. Busy. All three are out of town or they would have been here for the boat ride.”

“Does your dad still like his job?”

“Loves it.”

“He doesn’t miss chasing down culprits?”

Joe laughed. “Same corruption, smaller scale, and in more manageable bites—and fixable, unlike government or corporations.”

Joe and Chet exited the house and walked past a line of fir trees that flanked the cliff edge. Looking left across a small inlet, Chet could see the storefronts of tiny Depoe Bay, population 1,400, and, just beyond to the south, the short bridge that overarched the narrow entrance to the marina.

“There it is!” he exclaimed in mock horror, pointing. “The world’s deadliest harbor!”

“ _Smallest_ , Chet,” Joe corrected.

“That’s _why_ it’s the deadliest.”

Joe laughed. “You still haven’t gotten over the cruise Tony took us on during your last visit, have you?”

“Cruise? The swells were so large I thought we’d capsize, and Eva was so seasick she spent most of the _cruise_ draped over the commode. It’s probably why Biff and Jerry didn’t come this time!”

“Other commitments, Chet,” Joe explained about two of their Bayport friends

“That’s what they _said_ ,” Chet added, “but I suspect they were remembering when Tony had to thread that needle’s eye of a harbor opening you have here, while hurricane winds were pushing the boat into the rocks!”

Chet exaggerated—and not for the first time. But in this case, he exaggerated only lightly. A localized squall had cut short an old friends whale-watching outing. By the time Tony had piloted the sturdy craft in from open water, the lurching seas were sending spray onto Highway 101 and making access to the marina even more difficult. To reach the protected marina beyond the rocky cliffs, Tony had to time the waves perfectly to navigate the 50-foot-wide channel whose dogleg course added to the challenge. 

“He surfed us right through, didn’t he?”

“Sheer luck,” Chet said. “It was white-knuckles the whole way.”

“Chet, that’s what he does for a living.”

“It was like some of those harrowing misadventures you and Frank got us into years ago in Bayport.”

Joe put his arm reassuringly around Chet’s shoulder. “The weather looks better this time, old chum.”

Chet walked closer to the cliff edge until he could see the waves careening across the base of the volcanic rock of the point, sturdy enough to withstand millennia of pounding by the Pacific surf.

“So where is Frank?” Chet asked.

“We’re not certain,” Joe said

Chet shot him a questioning look.

“As usual, he was on special assignment, so he didn’t speak of details,” Joe said. “He mentioned Spokane before he left. During his last call he told Callie he would be home this morning. With any luck he’ll be here when we return from seeing the whales.”

“If we return,” Chet added glumly, though with a smile.

“Come on,” Joe said, turning back toward the house. “I hear the girls shooting hoops.”

To one side of the house was an asphalt basketball court, and Joe and Iola’s two daughters were playing a one-on-one game. In an odd coincidence that was often remarked upon, Joe’s two daughters and Frank’s two sons were born in the same years. Pre-planning was always denied.

The oldest, Laura, tossed a perfect one-hop feed to Chet as he approached. Bobbling the ball for a moment, Chet drove toward the basket with surprising alacrity and dodged the younger daughter’s attempted block. The ball caromed off the backboard for two points.

“Not bad, Uncle Chet!” Francesca, the younger, exclaimed. She had inherited Iola’s blue eyes and her mother’s darker hair. She was a sturdy 5’ 8”, two inches shorter than her older sister.

“Are you two geezers up for a little two-on-two?” Laura asked, who indeed took after her namesake grandmother’s curly light hair and dark eyes.

“Not against you two court-sharks,” their father said.

“No, thanks,” Chet said with a laugh. “We’re saving our waning life-force for the rigors of Tony’s boat ride. Are you both coming with us?”

“We can watch whales from our upstairs bedroom window, Uncle Chet,” Francesca explained.

“Then you’re not going to have the chance to chum for sharks?” Chet replied.

Francesca looked at him blankly.

“I think he means throwing up over the side, Franny,” Laura said.

“Funny, Uncle Chet,” the younger daughter said.

”Or the chance to be rammed by a rogue whale?” Chet added.

“That was a white whale in the novel, Uncle Chet. These are gray whales,” said the older daughter, Laura, with a laugh.

“But they might mistake the boat for a tasty meal,” Chet persisted.

“They feed on tiny things like plankton and krill, Uncle Chet,” Francesca corrected. 

“Oh, then it’s probably safe to go out,” he said resignedly.

“Afraid so,” Laura said.

“And we need to be on our way, Chet,” Joe said.

The two girls hugged their “uncle,” and Joe and Chet rounded the house and entered the oversize great room with a high peaked ceiling and numerous skylights. 

The first section of the room was a sunroom with a wall of windows looking south across the water. To offset the brightness of the many windows, the room was divided by partial walls on both sides.

The left area contained an elaborate computer set-up with multiple monitors and several work stations. The area to the right was the video room, with a wall-mounted big screen, media players of different sorts, and was currently occupied by two dissimilar yet similar brothers gaming on a PS4. 

Trenton, 18, was the older, and had inherited the family dark hair and eyes and a name that echoed his grandfather Fenton. A year younger at 17, Jesse had Callie’s lighter hair and caramel-colored brown eyes. Both were an inch taller than their father, though leaner and less toned because, as Frank kidded them, the only curls they did were with their cellphones.

Iola, Callie and Eva joined the men as they approached the two gamers.

“We’ve been waiting for you,” Trenton said, pausing the game and setting down his controller. “We wanted to show you former sleuths something,” he said, rising from the sofa and shaking hands with Chet and Eva. Jesse, the more impetuous, hugged the couple.

“We just watched an old Basil Rathbone movie,” Jesse said, “ _Sherlock Holmes Faces Death,_ and thought all of you should hear the final scene.”

Trenton resumed the video and on the screen appeared Holmes and Watson riding in a ‘40s MG with the top down. The group watched as Holmes drove through a quaint English village while giving a homily for the World War II theatergoers:

 _There is a new spirit abroad in the land. The old days of grab and greed are on their way out. We’re beginning to think of what we_ owe _the other fellow, not just what we’re compelled to give him._

_The time’s coming, Watson, when we shan’t be able to fill our bellies in comfort while other folk go hungry, or sleep in warm beds while others shiver in the cold._

_When we shan’t be able to kneel and thank God for blessings before our shining altars while men anywhere are kneeling in either physical or spiritual subjection._

_And, God willing, we’ll live to see that day, Watson._

As Trenton muted the movie and the credits played, he turned to the group and looked at them with eyes too old for his age. “So what happened? It’s been 70 years. When does it get fixed?” he asked, sincerely and without accusation.

“It may not show,” Joe said, “but we _are_ working on it.”

Callie hugged her boys in turn, and then ruffled Trenton’s hair. “Your generation is our hope. Don’t muff it.

CHAPTER 4

**Mysterious Communications**

Tony Prito piloted the _Napoli_ across the tranquil protected waters of tiny Depoe Bay harbor and toward the narrow channel at the north end of the rectangular basin. Opposite the opening was the Coast Guard facility. With moorage for less than 50 boats, it may not be the world’s smallest natural harbor, but it certainly is noteworthy for its challenging passageway into tempestuous Pacific surf.

The original Prito family speedboat had been destroyed by treasure-hunting criminals in the adventure tagged as _The Secret of Pirate’s Hill_. Its upgraded replacement speedboat was named the _Napoli II_. Years later, in homage to his beloved original craft, Tony used the original name to christen his dream charter boat.

Chet stood next to Tony on the bridge of the sturdy 40-foot _Napoli_ , while the others clustered below in the galley where Tony’s wife, Gina, bright green eyes and a constant smile, was opening a red and a white wine for their guests.

Tony, a canvas sunhat covering most of his unruly graying locks, spoke into his VHF microphone, “Coast Guard Station, this is Tony Prito aboard the _Napoli_ , preparing to exit the channel.”

“All clear, Tony,” came the reply from the station located not 50 yards away in the corner of harbor. The bend in the narrow passage under Highway 101 blocked visibility of incoming boats and necessitated a gate keeper, even at the posted 15 mph speed limit.

“Hold onto your wine glasses!” Chet announced to those below. “Tony’s about to thread the needle again!”

Tony chuckled. “Chet, at this ebb tide, the flow would almost pull us out automatically. In fact, I want you to take the wheel so you can overcome your fear of our beloved water-slide channel.”

“Impossible! You’ve been out in the sun too long, Tony!”

“Seriously, Chet, I’ll guide you through it. Here, take the wheel,” Tony said.

“Impossible!”

“That’s an order, mate!” Tony said, suddenly backing away from the helm.

Chet quickly grabbed the wooden grips of the wheel, mild panic showing on his face. “OK, but don’t take risks like that.”

“Just keep it in the center of the channel,” Tony said.

“Good thing everyone is wearing life jackets,” Chet said anxiously. Ahead were the three imposing arches that supported the bridge overpass.

“How deep is the water in the channel?” Chet asked with concern. “It doesn’t look deep enough.”

“At least eight feet, Chet.”

“Eight feet!”

“It’s low tide, Chet.”

“We might run aground,” he worried.

“Nah, that would be when we clear the harbor entrance. There are two nasty reefs to the north and south that we want to avoid.”

“Oh, that’s really good to know,” Chet said with affected sarcasm as his eyes searched for obstacles in their path. 

“Might come in handy,” Tony said wryly.

Chet focused on his task and entered the channel opening, then eased through the S curve, past the two breakwaters that protected the north entrance from strong southerly surge, and finally emerged unscathed in open water.

“That wasn’t so bad after all,” Chet said. “Now where are those reefs?”

“North and south. Aim for the horizon for a hundred yards or so, and bear to port a degree or two. There’s a bell buoy to tell you when we will be clear of the bars.”

“Port. Is that left?”

“Aye, aye, captain.”

Chet was enjoying himself so much that he asked to pilot the craft to a good whale viewing site, and Tony indulged him. Chet was joined topside by his sister and wife who lathered praise on him for his successful piloting, and by Joe who needled him about his “threading of the needle.” Chet reveled in it all.

First he headed north past the Hardy vacation home and, once around the point of land, Chet was delighted to come upon Pirate Cove, which he felt was most appropriate for the group. Tony suggested they lay to for a while, but when the first massive black body breached to starboard, Chet suggested Tony might be the better skipper for the job.

The group took up spots at the fore railing. Tony brought them close enough to see the whale’s barnacle-encrusted back before the cetacean leisurely dove, flashing its iconic fluke. Callie, with her ever-present camera, took scrapbook photos.

Using the ship’s speaker system, Tony informed his tour group that these gray whales were permanent residents, and spent most of the year along this stretch of coast.

“Most gray whales participate in the longest migration of any mammal, over 12,000 miles roundtrip. These 40-ton giants head south from their Arctic feeding grounds in late fall to the lagoons of southern Baja to mate and to bear their young, then hug the coast on their return in the spring to the rich waters of Alaska to fatten up for next year’s long swim, covering up to 70 miles per day.”

Joe, binoculars around his neck, appeared next to Tony on the flying bridge. His expression suggested mild alarm. “Tony, a drone has been tailing us.”

“Why?”

“No idea, but it stays just distant enough that I can’t make out any markings. It’s an unusual design. No propellers. Callie’s telephoto lens doesn’t bring it in either. Could you use these twin diesels to get us to a good speed and then make a quick about-face? Maybe I can get an ID when it banks to reposition itself.”

“Alert the others to hold on tight,” Tony said. “If it were anybody but the Hardys, I’d say it was probably a professional photographer adding to his inventory.”

“Let’s hope you’re right,” Joe said and went below to prepare the others.

When everyone had been briefed about the drone, Tony gunned the engines and sprayed wake for a quarter mile. The drone, at first slow to respond, began to gain ground on the _Napoli_ and at Joe’s signal Tony abruptly slowed and swung around 180 degrees.

The drone did indeed bank to maintain its distance as it circled around the boat, but it was enough time for Joe to get a glimpse of the top of the single swept wing.

“No markings,” Joe said to Callie who captured several frames of the drone. “The paint scheme makes it very hard to see: underside a pale sky blue and deep ocean blue above. This might be hard to track down.”

“It’s a Skywing,” Callie said.

Joe looked at her in disbelief. “Callie, your tech knowledge is impressive, but how could you possibly know that?”

Callie smiled at her brother-in-law. “Because one of my former clients, a small Portland startup, hired me to work up their catalog, and mixed in with the beginner models was a photo that someone had mistakenly included. There was no spec information for it, just a file name of _Skywing_. I guessed it was a military prototype and never mentioned it.”

“I think that discounts Tony’s idea it might be a professional photographer.”

“Agreed. Cost alone would make that unlikely.”

When the two looked up again, the drone had disappeared from sight.

“We should do some research on it when we get back,” Joe said.

“I’ll check with my contacts,” Callie said.

Iola approached. “I called the girls and asked them to start the dinner. They said Frank had not returned or made contact.”

Callie said with frustration, “I’ve been trying to call him and text him and I get a no-service message.”

Joe’s expression was grave. “Where _is_ Frank?”

On the return to the harbor, the conversation turned to reminiscing about the chum’s teenage adventures and misadventures. Tony had inherited the _Napoli II_ , the Prito family’s speedboat that had been involved in a number of adventures of the teenage sleuths and their chums. After resettling in Oregon, Tony had lovingly restored and upgraded the blue and white craft, and it now was berthed in one of Depoe Bay’s coveted slips—and used just for pleasure outings!

Twenty years earlier, the _Napoli II_ played a key role in solving what would prove to be the Hardy Boys’ final case as private detectives. 

CHAPTER 5

**Chum’s Return**

After the group had seen the _Napoli_ securely docked at the Depoe Bay Marina, they returned to the Hardys’ vacation home for dinner. Throughout, Callie became increasingly worried, eating little and continuing to attempt to connect with her husband, but without success.

After dinner, when coffee was served in the sunroom, the adults settled into lounge chairs and sofas, while the teenagers gravitated to their screens, gaming for the boys and the girls on their computers.

Callie was unable to focus on the life-update conversation, and instead, smartphone in hand, she walked to the wall of windows with its view of whitecaps in a brisk dance across the bay. 

Suddenly, Callie’s silenced phone vibrated and she shrieked with joy, “It’s Frank!”

Simultaneously, every smartphone in the house began its own distinctive ring. The group looked at each other, perplexed, as they checked their phones.

“Frank’s calling!” Joe said excitedly as he looked at his screen.

“He’s calling on mine, too,” Iola said.

“Mine, too,” exclaimed Chet.

Eva, Tony and Gina all reported the same, and Trenton called out from behind the room divider, “Same here. It’s Dad calling both of us.”

At the computer stations, Laura and Francesca shouted, “Us, too!”

Yet there was no reply to their hellos, only a silent open line.

“Please, Frank, say something,” Callie implored.

The silence seemed interminable, yet no one dared disconnect.

Abruptly, they all heard: “This is Frank Hardy. I will be home soon.”

The call was terminated.

When they tried to return the call, they received a not-in-service recording.

“What is this?” Callie demanded. “How could he have called all of us at the same time?”

“It’s impossible!” Joe stated.

“Yet he did it,” Chet added.

“ _Someone_ did,” Tony said.

“Was that even Frank?” Callie asked. “His voice sounded odd.”

Eva looked at Chet, her expression betraying bewilderment, and a trace of fear.

Gina, usually soft-spoken, said with exasperation, “Isn’t there someone we can call?”

Joe looked at Callie. “Actually, there is someone I can call. I’ll be in The Barn,” he said as he hurried toward the sunroom door.

His attention was drawn to one of the top windows of the peaked ceiling, where he saw the drone, stationary, snout pointed directly at the house. As if keying on his movements, the sweptwing craft made a sharp bank and headed inland at an impressive speed.

The Barn, as the Hardys called their custom-designed two-story garage, was built in homage to the barn at their former Bayport home. It included parking and storage on the ground level, and the upper level contained a home gym—and the Hardys’ private lab with panoramic windows showing slices of the Pacific through the pines and firs that ringed the yard.

After the security system scanned both his fingerprint and his iris, Joe opened the door to the brothers’ lab. Both brothers used the office’s resources for “homework” relating to their careers. 

Using an encrypted line, Joe called one of the agents on Frank’s cyber team.

“Agent Wilkins, Joe Hardy.” In his mind he saw the agent’s shiny shaved dome.

“Hi, Joe, was wondering when I might hear from you.”

“That doesn’t sound good, Beau.”

“First, give me an update, Joe,” the agent said.

“Frank texted Callie yesterday that he was delayed and would be home today—but he hasn’t shown,” Joe began. “Then, moments ago, everyone in the house had a call from Frank’s phone—at the same time! But it was actually just a recording of him saying he would be home soon.”

“That is most unusual, Joe.”

“Yeah, at the very least unusual, if not downright alarming. And, for a little extra strangeness, we are being surveilled by a drone.”

“Preferably not a Reaper!” Wilkins said, with an abbreviated laugh.

“This probably isn’t the time for humor, Beau.”

“Sorry, Joe. Sometimes humor is a refuge in this line of work.”

“I grok. Now, what can you tell me?”

“Unfortunately very little.”

“For security reasons—or lack of information?”

“A little of both, Joe.”

“Callie had a call from Frank in Umatilla on Wednesday,” Joe said. “He mentioned an appointment in Spokane.”

“You know I can’t, Joe…”

“Understand. Are you in touch with him?”

“He did check in, but sounded guarded.”

“Can you at least reassure me that you know where he is and have agents moving in?”

There was a long pause.

“Joe, we _don’t_ know where he is!”

“How can that be?” Joe exclaimed.

“I can’t explain it, but the last time he pinged was near Umatilla on Monday, and there is no record of him using his phone or laptop since.”

“But that’s impossible. Callie had a text from him.”

“I can’t speak to that.”

“Damn, Beau! Even presidents have tracking devices! Frank must have had one.”

“I can’t speak to that specifically, but there are several ways we can track our agents, but those all went inoperative on Monday.”

“You must have been able to track his vehicle,” Joe insisted.

Another long pause.

“We found his bureau car at a Spokane rental car agency,” Wilkins said quietly, “but we haven’t been able to locate the car he rented.”

Joe sat stunned at his lab desk, his mind desperately searching for solutions.

“Joe, you still there?”

“I expected better, Beau.”

“We’re doing our best.”

Resignedly, Joe said, “Stay in touch.”

On his way back to the house, Joe scanned the sky for sign of the drone, and was relieved to see only late afternoon skies swept clear of clouds.

As he closed the sunroom door to rejoin his family and friends, the drone, unseen, rose stealthily from below the cliff, pointed directly at the house.

“No luck,” Joe announced to the group. “The FBI has lost track of Frank.”

After a rush of comments—from disbelief to outrage—Joe shared some of what he had learned in his call to agent Wilkins, without compromising privileged information. As if on cue, he and Iola moved to embrace Callie, who stood clutching her phone.

‘It’s not knowing,” she said and broke down in tears. Soon the entire group had huddled around her, each silently bearing concern for their life-long friend and his wife.

“What the bleep!” came Trenton’s deep voice from the gaming room, closely followed by Francesca and Laura’s astonished cries from the computer room.

“Mom, you better come here!” Jesse called out.

Before Callie and the group could move, they heard the words from several speakers, “This is Frank Hardy. I’ll be home soon.”

The group moved quickly to the big screen where they saw a tight shot of Frank Hardy, smiling ambivalently, as he repeated the phrase. The image was also playing on the girls’ computer screens, though Joe’s daughters quickly joined their mother before the wide-screen representation of the missing chum. The background suggested an indoor setting, and they could see the top few inches of his dress shirt and tie.

“This is Frank Hardy. I’ll be home soon,” the loop continued, without change.

Callie, brown eyes wide with alarm, said, “That’s not Frank!”

“CGI,” Trenton pronounced.

Jesse added, “But they must have used actual footage of Dad.”

“The new programs can put words in someone’s mouth and match expression and lip movement,” Callie said.

“It would fool most people,” Joe added.

Eva had turned away and was holding Chet tightly. “This scares me,” she said.

“What does all this mean?” Tony asked as Gina moved closer to her husband and linked her arm with his.

Again the simulated Frank repeated his lines.

Then the screen went blank.

And the doorbell rang.

And Callie, following a hunch, ran toward the door, closely followed by Joe and, more hesitantly, the remainder of the group.

She swung open the door to reveal a disheveled, unshaven Frank Hardy, wearing the same shirt and tie as on the screen. His emotionless expression, bordering on bewilderment, melted away as he recognized his wife. His eyes welled with tears and he sputtered, “Oh, Cal!” as she rushed to take him in her arms.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chapters 6 thru 55...

CHAPTER 6

**Lost Memory**

“I don’t know” and “I can’t remember” were Frank’s consistent answers to a host of questions as the group was seated around the expansive dining table. The one thing Frank was certain about was a ravenous appetite. He finished off the remaining manicotti and a large slab of salmon as Joe took notes on Frank’s replies.

Joe had immediately checked for a vehicle and found the rental car in the driveway. Inside were Frank’s garment bag and shaving kit, his cellphone with a drained battery, his wallet and car rental agreement, and, significantly, no laptop.

Frank had no recall of anything after leaving the Portland FBI office on Monday and no memory of switching cars. He could not retrieve the purpose of his trip, nor whom he might have visited. He had no awareness of driving home, and seemed to have been flying on autopilot until he saw Callie in the doorway.

“Don’t you remember our conversation when you were in Umatilla?” Callie asked him as she caressed his hand.

“Sorry, love, I don’t.”

“You said something very sweet to me.”

Frank’s gaze became unfocused as he strained to remember. Abruptly self-conscious, his face flared with a vibrant blush, and he quickly lifted Callie’s hand to his lips.

“Yes, Cal, I do remember that.”

Several at the table, including the teenagers, squirmed at the intensity of the exchange, but Joe saw an opening.

“And where were you headed the next day, Frank? Who were you on the way to see?”

Frank’s stared blankly at his brother. “I want to remember, Joe! There’s just nothing there.” 

“Don’t worry, brother. Let’s give it some time. You did retrieve something, so it might be reversible.”

“At least I remember all of you, and that is a great comfort,” Frank said to a chorus of reassuring replies.

Joe told Frank that he had had contact with Agent Wilkins earlier, and that they would need to notify the office of Frank’s return. “I’ll run interference for you, but they are going to want you to see you immediately.”

“I forbid it!” Callie said with vehemence.

“Go, mom!” said Jesse.

Joe smiled at his nephew. “Frank, I’ll give them an update but try to stall them till morning. You and I will need to drive up for a debriefing. And maybe return your rental.”

“Where did I rent a car?” Frank asked.

“Can’t tell you.”

“Now who can’t remember?” Frank said with a laugh, sounding more like the old Frank Hardy.

“Frank is back,” Joe told Agent Wilkins using the encrypted phone in The Barn.

“Thank God,” Wilkins said. “Is he OK?”

Joe gave him the particulars about his memory loss, and stressed that in his haggard state Frank needed a good night’s sleep. “Will you check with the Deputy Director and verify he can have a night at home. I’ll bring him up first thing in the morning.”

“Was his gear intact?”

“Everything—except the laptop.”

“Holy cannoli.” 

“It was only a cursory search of the car,” Joe said. 

“If he was in danger, he may have hidden it.”

“I’ll make a thorough check when we’re done.”

“Call me back in half an hour. Joe, you _must_ find that laptop.”

“Shouldn’t you guys know where it is?”

“You know I can’t speak to that, but this wasn’t an ordinary laptop.”

Joe’s callback thirty minutes later was routed to the Deputy Director’s cellphone.

“Hi, Joe,” said Ahmad Zaidi, one of Frank’s classmates at the academy whose steady, level-headed performance had garnered regular promotions. “Glad to hear he is home and functioning, and has an appetite. So the memory loss only relates to the time since he left our office on Monday?”

“Correct.”

“He should probably come in tonight. He needs a complete medical and psych workup, but I’ll defer to your guess that rest in the home environment might be therapeutic.”

“Thanks, Ahmad.”

“I understand you are having a reunion this week. Would there be a doctor in the house?”

Joe laughed at the phrase. “As a matter of fact, there are two.”

“Good. Have them draw a blood sample to bring with you tomorrow. That will remove some of the urgency in seeing him immediately.”

“Will do,” Joe said.

“Be here at 9 a.m. and we’ll put him through his paces.”

“We’ll be there,” Joe said.

“Did you find the laptop?”

“Unfortunately not.” 

“Oh, boy.”

“Your guys could scan the car to be sure I didn’t miss it.”

“Of course. See you at nine, Joe.”

“Thanks, Ahmad.”

When Joe returned to the house, Frank’s obvious fatigue prompted an early end to the evening. All present sensed that Callie would appreciate some alone time with her husband.

Iola reminded everyone—teenagers included—that plans were still on to visit the Oregon Coast Aquarium tomorrow, followed by a sourdough chowder bowl at Mo’s Original. Tony was skippering a whale-watching charter and couldn’t join in, but Gina would meet the group at the aquarium, not far from their home in Newport. Chet joked that he couldn’t make it because he was going to stow away on the back seat of the rental car to be part of possible adventure. Joe assured him that he and Frank would be home tomorrow evening to spend the rest of the week with their friends.

“Don’t forget we’re taking out the _Sleuth_ and the _Napoli II_ on Friday,” Joe said.

Frank rose from the table and kissed the top of Callie’s head. “I’ll be right up, Cal.”

As the friends dispersed, Frank said to Trenton and Jesse, “Boys, may I see you in The Barn? And you too, Joe.”

The four climbed the stairs of the multipurpose garage, crossed the gym area and stopped in front of the secure door to the Hardy’s lab. Everyone in the family had been inside for various reasons, but only Frank and Joe could access the specially-constructed room. That was about to change.

“Boys,” Frank began, “you’ve proven your trustworthiness and your smarts, and now it’s time to extend a little more responsibility. Joe and I agree, after what has happened, that it makes sense to have you as backups, especially when we are both gone.”

Trenton and Jesse grinned at each other, and seemed just slightly taller. “Thanks, Dad,” they said simultaneously.

Frank first went through the scanning process and then added each boy in turn to the system’s memory, then had each son effect an entry. Once inside the lab, Frank retrieved a personal laptop, one configured to record voice through an internal microphone. It also was equipped with multi-spectrum sensors. All of its gathered information could be sent to The Barn’s elaborate computer system via encrypted line.

“You two could be a real source of help if we’re offsite and need to access records or some of our special software,” Frank said.

“We will be ready,” Trenton said.

“I’ll be trying it out tomorrow if I get a chance. I will, of course, let you know beforehand.”

CHAPTER 7

**FBI Headquarters**

It was a little before 6 a.m. when Callie, in robe and slippers, handed Frank coffee mugs and muffins through the passenger window of the rental car. Frank placed the mugs in the console holders and dotted each with a muffin. Joe had suggested it might be prudent if Frank let him drive to Portland, and Frank had agreed.

To the east, just over the low hills behind Depoe Bay, the rising sun was diffusing through the morning fog.

Callie leaned in to kiss Frank. “Stay in touch, buddy,” she commanded.

Frank nodded. “I’ll do better this time, Cal.”

“Take care of him, Joe!” she said as Joe eased away from the house.

As Joe turned onto Sunset Drive, his muffin toppled off his mug, and he pulled to the shoulder of the narrow lightly-traveled lane.

He fumbled for his breakfast in the dim light. Finally he said, “I need some light, Frank. Please turn on the dome for me.”

Joe sat up when there was no response and no light. He saw his brother, eyes closed, wincing as if in pain.

“Frank! What’s wrong?”

“What did you say?”

“I was asking if you were OK.”

“No, before that.”

“I asked you to turn on the dome light.”

Joe watched Frank’s face tense, as if against some imminent threat. In a moment his eyes opened. “I heard a man’s voice say, ‘Hi, turn on the dome.’ ”

“Another man, not me, correct?”

“Not you.”

“Were you in a car?” Joe asked.

Frank closed his eyes. “No, some kind of room.”

“Do you recognize the voice?”

“It’s familiar, but I can’t place it. Nasally, high pitched. Unpleasant.”

“’The dome’? Does that mean anything to you?”

“Not really. But I was expecting something terrifying.”

“Could this be a flashback, Frank?”

“Whatever it is, Joe, my mind is trying hard not to remember.”

“When you said you would take me to lunch while they debrief Frank,” Joe Hardy said to Agent Beau Wilkins, “I thought it would be to one of Portland’s many great lunch spots.”

“What’s not to like?” the agent replied as they entered the FBI cafeteria. “It has a great view.”

The fourth-floor dining hall did have a sweeping view of the Columbia River separating Oregon and Washington.

“Food’s good, too,” Wilkins added. “Some of those bistro chefs have come to work here.”

The Portland FBI complex occupied several acres in an upscale airport business park, only blocks from the end of PDX’s runway. 

“Grab a tray,” Wilkins said, his shaved head reflecting the fluorescent lighting.

“Quite the menu,” Joe said. “Everything from heart-attack double-cheese burgers to vegan pesto linguine. Very nice.”

“See.”

After paying for the meal, Wilkins led Joe to a table by a window looking out on the hubbub at Portland’s attractive and functional airport.

“There’s another reason, of course,” Wilkins added. “All the tables are wired—so I don’t have to take notes.”

“Bureau humor?” Joe asked.

“You’re on to me.”

The two men restrained conversation while they worked on their lunch items. Finally, Joe asked, “Recording or not, let’s talk about Frank’s last assignment.”

“OK. To the extent allowed.”

“How about something non-classified? Was he seeing a particular person in Spokane?”

“Well, I can’t speak to the reasons for his appointment, of course,” Wilkins said, “but since this is FOI-available information, I wouldn’t be cheating too much to mention he had an appointment at Fairchild Air Force Base.”

“With…?” 

“Well, you know I can’t—“

“Beau!”

“With Dr. Waters.”

“Jackie Waters? Of Payne and Waters torture fame?”

“Yes, the Masters and Johnson of torture, as we call them here. They had something going afterhours as well—until the news hit the fan. Payne took the hit for it, and protected Waters.”

“I remember the leaked photos of their victims. The story dragged on for weeks,” Joe said.

“Correct. Payne was disgraced and banished, while she stayed on at Fairchild survival training and kept her position with the CIA. Payne claimed responsibility for the erased files and videos.”

“And where did he end up?” Joe asked.

“He was ousted from the psychological association,” Wilkins said. “Fired from DOD. His consulting firm went under. With his tail feathers still smoldering from his public immolation, no university would have him. But a couple senators quietly got him a boondoggle job with the Energy Department. They basically dumped him at the Hanford site.”

Joe fixed Wilkins with intense eyes. “Undoubtedly you have interviewed Dr. Waters?”

“Naturally we have made contact with Jackie the Hammer.”

“More Bureau humor?” Joe asked.

“Yes. She was also known as ‘Boarding Waters.’ ”

“Considering her advocacy for dunking people, I like the second one,” Joe said. “Did she talk to Frank?”

Wilkins fidgeted. “She did. She said it was a short conversation that had nothing to do with torture. He was asking about Wolfgang Payne, but she told him she had had no contact with him since his firing.”

“Believable?” Joe asked.

“Who knows? Consider the source.”

“What was Frank’s interest in Payne?”

“Joe, let’s not go there.” Wilkins looked at his watch theatrically, and unnecessarily, since there were several clocks on the walls of the dining hall, “Let’s see if the docs are done with Frank,” he said as he stood.

“Anything else you can add that might help me understand what happened to Frank,” Joe said.

“Nothing that I’m allowed to reveal. I just wish you had been able to find Frank’s laptop,” Wilkins said in an ominous undertone.

Deputy Director Zaidi was tall and angular with alert eyes and a surprisingly soft-spoken voice. Frank and Joe sat in his office as he scanned over the reports on his desk.

“Frank, your blood was clean. No trace of any pharmaceutical intervention. No neurological causes. Brain waves normal. The psych docs found nothing to explain the memory loss, though they surmise that your one spontaneous recall could be duplicated, given some time,” Zaidi said, adding, “And the scan for a chip also came up negative.”

“Where do we go from here?” Frank asked.

“Home,” Zaidi said with a smile as he rose from his chair. “Enjoy your days off as planned. We will resume this next week. Call if you remember anything relevant.”

Frank and Joe also rose as Zaidi extended his hand to Frank. 

“You had me worried, Frank,” Zaidi said with genuine concern. Turning to Joe, he said, “Thanks for bringing him up.”

“See you Monday, Ahmad,” Frank said.

“Your car is in the garage, gassed up and ready to go,” Zaidi said.

CHAPTER 8

**Dangerous Detour**

As Frank pulled his service vehicle out of the FBI complex, he said, “Joe, what Ahmad didn’t say is that there was some suspicious electronic activity at the Bureau during my lost days. Not really hacking. Ahmad called it a ‘temporary merging.’ The freaky thing was that our analysts couldn’t trace it.”

“Is this related to your laptop?” Joe asked.

“That’s the assumption.”

“Curiouser and curiouser,” Joe said.

“Joe, I can’t just leave it like this. We have enough afternoon left to visit Jackie Waters.”

“You mean ‘Boarding Waters’?”

“Beau does love his nicknames,” Frank said. “Maybe retracing my steps will trigger some recall. Are you in?”

“I’ll call the family…” Joe said.

“And I’ll call Jackie the Hammer and invite her to dinner.”

“ _After_ you call Callie and explain the delay,” Joe insisted.

Relieved to hear from her husband, Callie chaffed at the further delay. “But I’m glad you called, because I checked my files—and I still have the artist’s rendering of the Skywing—but the company disavows any knowledge of it, even going so far as to suggest it was just the musings of a bored designer.”

“Worrisome,” Frank said. “I promise to call after our appointment.”

CHAPTER 9

**Crossed Signals**

Meanwhile, in the FBI office of Ahmad Zaidi, Agent Wilkins was hearing the rest of the story.

“All signals from Frank were captured by something,” Zaidi said. “There is no record of him using his cell phone, or his laptop, and even his Bureau car’s log was erased.”

“So that’s why he was untraceable after Umatilla. But how can that be?”

“At this point, we don’t know,” Zaidi said. “It’s as if all signals across several bandwidths were absorbed by some stronger force.”

Zaidi leaned back in his high-backed chair and briefly closed his eyes. Wilkins noticed signs of stress fatigue. 

“I’ve just sent a message to DC trying to explain how our inaccessible next generation laptop was accessed—and why we no longer have it.”

“I don’t envy you,” Wilkins said.

“This breach went further than our main FBI computer. It reached into the very core of the NSA network.”

“You mean it was hacked? With viruses?”

“If only it was that simple,” Zaidi said wearily. “It was described as more of a merging. But the intent seemed to be to obtain launch codes.”

“Holy Cannoli!”

CHAPTER 10

**Cloudy Waters**

The Hardys followed I-84 along the Columbia River and crossed into Washington at Umatilla where Frank had called Callie two days earlier before disappearing.

It was nearly 6 p.m. when Frank entered the gate of Fairchild Air Force Base in eastern Washington. Jackie Waters had readily agreed to meet with Frank, but insisted they do so at her office in the SERE administration office.

Looking more schoolmarm than dominatrix, Dr. Waters wore a drab baggy shift that exaggerated her thin frame. She studied the two Hardys behind large bifocal glasses.

“I’m surprised you still have questions, Mr. Hardy. You were so thorough the other day.” She paid close attention to Frank’s delay in answering.

“I would still like to contact Wolfgang Payne,” he said.

“As you said. And I gave you his private number. Have you lost it?” A restrained smile tugged at her thin lips.

“I must have copied it down incorrectly.”

“Oh, I see. What a shame you had to drive all this way. You might have called?”

“We had other business in the area,” Frank said.

“Here you go,” she said, producing her business card from a shift pocket and handing it to Frank. On the back was a handwritten phone number and the word _Payne_.

Joe, who had been studying Waters throughout, saw her eyes widen with surprise. He turned to his brother and saw Frank squinting in pain, palms to his temples.

“What’s the matter, Mr. Hardy?” she asked, just a little too solicitously.

Frank pulled himself back from his flash of memory. “Must be a migraine coming on,” he said.

“I’m so sorry,” Waters said. “May I get you something for it?”

“No, no, they usually pass,” Frank said. “Thank you for this,” he said, putting the card in his pocket.

“You’re welcome. You agents are certainly a curious lot,” she said as she herded them toward the door. “Two others came to see me after you did, asking about poor Wolfgang—and about you. I’m afraid I wasn’t much help. You see, I’ve had no contact with him since the libtards ruined his career. Maybe you’ll have better luck. It is an old phone number, but it’s all I have.”

Dr. Waters watched the brothers until they had left the parking lot. Then she returned to her office and retrieved a smartphone from a drawer and put it to her ear. “It worked perfectly. He remembers nothing.”

“Excellent,” a high-pitched male voice answered.

“This is like MK-Ultra 2.0!” Waters effused.

“Way beyond that! These interrogatees give up the information willingly!”

CHAPTER 11

**Planning for the Plutonium Palace**

After checking into a comfortable travel hotel, the Hardys began their phone duties.

First, Frank called the number Dr. Waters had given him, likely the same number he called three days ago and no longer remembered. A recorded voice told him to leave his message at the beep. “This is Frank Hardy. A return call, please, to this phone number. Room 304.”

Almost immediately, the phone rang. “Yes, Mr. Hardy, how may I be of help?”

“Is this Wolfgang Payne?” Frank asked. The man’s voice was eerily familiar.

“It is. How can I help?”

“I’m very interested in solar technology and understand you operate an experimental station for the Department of Energy. I wondered if I might tour your facility on my drive back tomorrow from Spokane?”

“I would be delighted,” said Payne. “But you must realize we have only a small array with a very limited mission. So I don’t know how beneficial it will be.”

“Every little bit helps, Dr. Payne.”

“Then by all means come by, say at 11 a.m.? My two part-timers leave then and we can avoid interruptions.”

“That would be fine,” Frank said.

“Do you know where we are located?”

“Only that it is somewhere on the Hanford site.”

“Yes, we are somewhat off the beaten path, but the guard will give you directions. Your badge will be ready at the north gate on Highway 24 when you arrive. Will you be alone?”

“I will have my brother, Joe, with me.”

“Badges for two then. Looking forward to meeting you, Mr. Hardy.”

“And you as well,” Frank said in closing, with the nasally unpleasant voice lingering after he hung up.

“Joe, I’m certain now that the voice I heard in my flashback was Wolfgang Payne’s. And that whatever stole my memory happened at Hanford.”

“You had another flashback at Waters’ office, your ‘migraine,’ ” Joe said. “Was it the same?”

“No. It was an odd exchange between Payne and another man. Payne said, ‘Hi. Did we get what we needed?’ And the other man said, ‘Oh, yes, and so much more.’ “

“The laptop possibly?” Joe asked.

“Possibly, but it was protected in multiple ways. Without a series of verbal commands and passwords, they couldn’t even open it, let alone get past the protocols to turn it on.”

Frank and Joe looked questioningly at each other, with unspoken concern over what might have happened during Frank’s loss of memory.

“Callie,” Frank began his phone conversation with his wife, “we have one stop tomorrow, then we’ll be home.”

“Can you tell me where you’re headed?”

“Only that it’s at the Hanford nuclear site.”

“What! That’s the most toxic spot on earth,” she said with frustration. “Does the office know you’re going there?”

Frank chuckled. “Yes, Cal. I suspect they know exactly where I am at every minute, so don’t worry.”

“You’ll miss the ride in the S _leuth_.”

“Sorry, it can’t be helped. Maybe you could all ride in the _Napoli II_?”

“I’ll check with the group,” Callie said. “And I do know you have to do this.”

“Thanks, Cal. That helps. Joe wants to talk next, but first can you put Trent on the line?”

“Sure. But be home tomorrow night, Frank Hardy—or I’ll damn well come and get you myself!”

In a brief exchange with his older son, Frank asked his sons to visit The Barn and be ready for an encrypted call.

Frank handed the hotel phone to Joe and prepared his personal laptop for the call to his sons.

Joe meanwhile relayed to Frank amusing tidbits from his conversations with Iola, his daughters and then Chet who asked to speak with Frank.

“We miss you guys. I _knew_ I should have stowed away in that rental car,” Chet said.

“You would have been bored silly, Chet.”

“Well, it beats having your sister remind you at the aquarium that as a teenager you looked like one of those blue jellyfish.”

“That was a compliment, old friend.”

“That’s what she said…”

Family calls now over, Frank sat before his enhanced laptop and linked up with his encrypted server.

“Are you boys there?” Frank asked.

“We’re here, Dad. Is everything all right?” Trenton said.

“So far, so good. We need a favor, though. Tomorrow, about 10:45, turn on the full-spectrum receivers for a transmission. Joe and I will be visiting a DOE experimental site at the Hanford complex and we need to record _everything_ , from voice to microwave signals to radiation levels. Then download it all to the external hard drive.”

“We’re on it,” Jesse said.

“And one more thing, just as a precaution, if I don’t contact you by two o’clock, or if we lose the transmission, call Ahmad at the office and share any recorded signals.”

“Will do, Dad,” Trenton said.

“Be safe, Dad,” Jesse added.

“Love you both. So long for now.”

Frank closed his laptop and looked over at his brother.

“You know, Joe, at times I still have the urge to pick up the phone and call dad. Usually to run something by him.”

“It has always been reassuring to know he was available at the other end of the line,” Joe said.

“If he didn’t know the answer, he knew someone who would.”

Joe smiled ruefully. “And right now we could use some answers.”

The three elder Hardys had joined their family members in Oregon ten years earlier as a result of Fenton Hardy’s final case as a private investigator. Years earlier he had helped solve a rash of patent thefts for a New York manufacturer, Warren Lightner, and was handsomely rewarded by his client. 

Lightner, with a secure fortune behind him, became a proponent of cooperative business ownership and set up several successful co-ops on the East Coast. 

When a major Oregon organic co-op faltered and was rumored to be considering bankruptcy, Lightner intervened with an infusion of capital investment and became a board member. 

Lightner consulted with Fenton Hardy who took an unusual interest in the story—and the prospect of needing to spend several weeks in Oregon near the younger Hardys. Under the guise of a potential investor, Fenton reviewed the financials, attended a board meeting, and got to know many of the employees who complained about unnecessary layoffs and the disappearance of funds for promised equipment upgrades.

Fenton discovered the CEO and two board members had been siphoning company profits through accounting gimmicks. The missing funds ended up in the account of a fictitious company in the Cayman Islands. He was able to recover some of the money, and Warren took over the reins of the cooperative.

While Lightner’s sons maintained the family’s eastern holdings, he eagerly moved a small farming community in the Willamette Valley—conveniently equidistant from both Portland and the capital, Salem—and eventually transformed a small industrial park at a municipal airport into a thriving cooperative collective.

As founding partners, Lightner and Fenton established AmeriCo-op, a co-op advisory organization that counseled businesses that were establishing or transitioning to a cooperative ownership model. As time went on, they were also consulted about co-ops that had gone awry.

Frank mused, “The years after they moved to Oregon were the happiest I’d ever seen Dad.”

“All of them,” agreed Joe. “Even Aunt Gertrude had found the mellow.”

“Well, most of the time,” Frank laughed. “Unless she saw news footage of the president!”

“OK, except for that. But that was justified, and simply illustrated her keen understanding of abnormal psychology.”

“We got lucky on the parent front, Joe.”

“Affirmative, brother.”

During the night Frank was startled awake by a dream image as jarring as ice water in the face. Looking up at a turquoise ceiling, an oval section large enough to cover him began a slow descent toward his reclining body. A voice—of the unseen man Payne had talked to—said soothingly, “Don’t be alarmed, Mr. Hardy.”

“How can I not?” Frank demanded.

“Because this will be the most wonderful experience of your life!”

Frank jolted upright with heart racing, relieved to be in the hotel room, and decided to wait for morning to tell Joe about his latest flashback.

CHAPTER 12

**Hanford**

“This is just godforsaken desert,” Joe said as Frank turned off Highway 24 into to the Hanford Nuclear Site.

“What better place to build a Plutonium Palace?” Frank answered.

A sign at the intersection advertised guided tours of the now-defunct plant where material for 60,000 plutonium-enriched warheads had been produced.

Set back a hundred yards from the highway was a standard-issue guard house. Frank stopped alongside and a smiling young security guard approached. Frank lowered his car window to the 99° breath-sucking heat.

“Nice to see you again, Agent Hardy. I have your badges ready. Just sign here,” he said, handing Frank a clipboard.

Navigating through the awkwardness of his memory loss, Frank said, “I see by your personal radiation monitor that it’s safe to enter.”

The young man laughed. “As long as you stay on the main roads. My girlfriend worries about it. She thinks I’ll be glowing in the dark soon, but it isn’t a bad job.”

Frank handed the guard the clipboard and in return received the visitor badges. “Refresh my memory, please, on just where the turns are,” Frank said.

“Of course. I’ll mark the route on a site map. Be right back.”

Joe said after the guard left, “No question that you’ve been here before.”

“Yes, but how was the entire experience erased?” Frank replied.

The guard returned and handed Frank a map. “By the way, I checked on the question you asked me last time. The Hanford Site totals 586 square miles!”

“That’s a lot of sagebrush,” Frank said.

“Yes, sir.” The guard stood uncertainly. Hesitantly he said, “You also asked me about tour buses coming to the site. I told you no, which was true. The tours are for the reactors and control center, an hour away.”

“Which was helpful information,” Frank replied.

“Yeah, but it bothered me after you left that I hadn’t told you all I could have.”

“There must have been a good reason,” Frank said accommodatingly.

“Look, I’ve been warned not to fall for traps,” the young man said. “You could have been testing my loyalty. I couldn’t take that chance.”

“Nor would I want you to. Let’s leave it there. Best wishes to you and your girlfriend.”

The security guard took a step back, then reconsidered. “Sorry, Agent Hardy, I like you—and I trust you. _Please,_ you didn’t hear this from me.

“That’s a given,” Frank replied.

“There are buses that come here regularly. I was told they were from the company that makes the solar array.”

“What is the name of the company?”

“That’s the funny thing, Agent Hardy. It’s a gray unmarked bus with tinted windows.”

“Military?”

“Air Force would be my guess,” the guard said, his face tense.

“Did you happen to notice the type of license plate?” Frank asked.

“Regular Washington State plates,” the guard said with a sudden smile, pleased at having an answer.

Frank Hardy extended his hand to the young man. “This will be our secret, officer.”

“Yes, sir!” the security guard said with relief, shaking Frank’s hand. “You gentlemen have a great day.”

CHAPTER 13

**Payne at Hanford**

The barren tree-less route took the Hardys past the sites of several of the eight decommissioned reactors, with most structures demolished and buried on site. The radioactive legacy was not so easily erased. The remaining active reactor—dozens of miles to the south—had been converted to provide electricity for the grid. 

As Frank approached an intersection that angled back toward the Columbia River, he blurted, “This is it! I remember this turn.”

Joe agreed after checking their map. “This road dead ends at the experimental station.”

“And we’re early enough to see the part-time staff before they leave. Maybe I’ll recognize the other voice in my recalls.”

Another half mile down the road the Hardys began to see the precise rows of angled blue panels of the solar array and the top of a structure. Upon arrival they saw an unpretentious single-story building with few windows, a taller warehouse, and two vehicles parked under a solar canopy carport.

“A staff of only two?” Joe said in disbelief. 

Fanned out on both sides of the structure and to the rear were the panels standing as if at attention.

A sign at the front read: Department of Energy Solar Inverter Experimental Facility. To one side of the main building was a windowless structure with warehouse doors and a sign reading: Battery Room. A quarter mile ahead was the low bluff that bordered the Columbia River.

Frank parked under the carport canopy and then primed his laptop for its recording mission. He noticed his hands were clammy with unwanted apprehension as he checked background radiation, one of the many signals his laptop was monitoring. He said with surprise, “Six millisieverts! Way beyond background radiation readings.”

“Let’s keep our visit short, shall we?” Joe said.

“Yes, for everyone’s sake.”

Frank finished his preparations and closed up his laptop. 

“We’re live, Joe. Let’s go meet the torture doc. Trent and Jess, keep the tapes rolling,” Frank said using an old phrase for recording information.

When the Hardys exited the car a glint of sunlight drew Joe’s attention in the direction of the river. “There it is, Frank!” he said, pointing above the solar array.

Barely visible in the intense brightness was the sweptwing drone.

“I don’t know if we should be worried or comforted,” Frank said. As before, the craft appeared to know it had been spotted, and it wagged its wing once and then banked away below the bluff.

“You’re early,” announced Wolfgang Payne when he opened the locked front door in reply to Frank’s knock. He did not offer his hand.

“Is it inconvenient?” Frank replied. “We made better time than expected.”

“No, not at all,” Payne replied. He was short, with a pronounced paunch protruding from his stained unbuttoned lab coat. Frazzled residual hair and a pair of readers that hung from a lanyard around his neck added to a rumpled academic look. His eyes were small and pale, as if receding into his skull. Frank was startled by the contrast between Payne’s online photos and his current fragile appearance.

“This is my brother, Joe,” Frank said.

“Are you also interested in solar technology?” Payne asked, again declining to offer his hand.

“Not really. Just spending some time with my brother on my day off,” Joe answered.

“And Mr. Hardy, you’ve brought a laptop.”

“For notes, if needed.”

“I see.”

Payne led the Hardys from the anteroom and entered a sparsely furnished office that could have accommodated a much larger staff. 

“Adelle and Claude you may leave a little early today so I may show our guests around.”

To the brothers he said, “Adelle is our office manager and Claude is our maintenance man.”

Frank and Joe watched as the two quickly gathered up their belongings. Adelle was middle-aged, Claude a young man in blue work shirt.

“Claude, wasn’t it?” Frank said, extending his hand as the man walked past the brothers toward the door. Claude took it with a strong grip. “You maintain the entire array?” Frank asked.

“Well, most of the upkeep is done by the manufacturer during periodic maintenance, but there is always work to be done,” Claude said.

Frank’s quick look at Joe, and a restrained shake of his head, let Joe know Claude’s voice was not that of the other man in his flashbacks.

Wolfgang Payne opened the door for his two co-workers and double locked it after they exited. “DOE policy,” he said as he turned toward the brothers.

“What kind of tour did you have in mind?” Payne asked.

“Just a brief overview would be fine,” Frank said.

“Let’s start with the panels,” Payne said, indicating a hallway leading to the back of the building. The Hardys passed half a dozen offices with fully-equipped computer stations. 

Payne pointed to one with an array of file cabinets. “I’m the accountant, the HR director and the administrator. As you might know, _Agent_ Hardy”—in Payne’s first acknowledgement of Frank’s employment, “my career was trashed. Betrayed by a woman. So, I was lucky to land this position, even though it’s just an insult job. Scandalous, reduced to a GS11! But, it keeps me out of trouble!” he said with a piercing brittle laugh.

CHAPTER 14

**The Hardy Boys on Alert**

Inside the Hardy’s secure lab in The Barn, Frank’s sons monitored the transmission being sent by their father’s laptop. The multispectral data was recorded both on their computer and an external hard drive. The audio portion was also channeled through external speakers.

Their mother and aunt, along with their cousins Laura and Franny, had taken Chet and Eva to dinner at the nearby Tidal Raves restaurant.

Trent, in shorts, T-shirt and flip-flops, said to his brother. “All the equipment is working perfectly.”

“Dad’s microphone is so sensitive,” Jesse said, “that it’s like being in the room with him.”

“I’m glad we’re not.” Trent said. “I can almost feel the residual radiation of the site.”

Jesse was sitting at a separate computer with the satellite view of the Hanford Complex on his screen. “I cannot find the building on Google Earth. Even using the coordinates from Dad’s laptop signal, neither the structure nor the solar array show up.”

“That seems a little suspicious,” Trenton said.

“At this point, everything seems suspicious,” Jesse said. 

CHAPTER 15

**The Other Voice**

Outside, under intense sunlight, Payne led the Hardys past a small section of solar panels anchored into the desert sand, and then into the warehouse containing the storage battery, where he gave a perfunctory explanation about the testing of a more advanced inverter process for converting the DC current into AC.

Throughout, Payne’s harried movements and listless narration underscored that his performance was mere charade.

“The tour is over,” Payne brusquely announced as he locked the door to the battery room and led the way back to the main building.

Inside, wiping at his sweating forehead with a handkerchief, he turned on the Hardys. Face rigid with defiance, he demanded, “What is it you want, Agent Hardy?”

“The truth might be a good starting point. I’m convinced that I have been here before, and that I lost something along the way.”

“ _Something_?” Payne said.

“A laptop—and my memories of the visit.”

“That sounds like wild-eyed irrationality, Agent Hardy.”

“Perhaps, but it is becoming an increasingly irrational world in many ways.”

Payne flashed an insincere smile at the Hardys. “Are you _ready_ for the truth, Agent Hardy?”

Looking directly at Joe, he repeated the question. “And you, Joseph Hardy, special prosecutor for the DOJ, are _you_ ready for the truth?”

Neither Hardy spoke, allowing silence to answer the challenge.

“Then follow me, gentlemen, and I’ll show you what you _really_ want to see.”

Payne scuttled down the hallway and, unseen by the Hardys, touched a spot on the wall. Suddenly an eight-foot section silently descended, revealing a pair of wide windowless metal doors.

“A secret panel!” Joe exclaimed.

The Hardys could hear musical tones as Payne punched six numbers into a cypher lock. “The solar array I showed you is the energy source for the most revolutionary experiment in the history of mankind,” Payne said with sudden animation.

With something bordering on glee, Payne hurried through the doors as they opened automatically to reveal the brushed steel doors of a freight elevator not far ahead.

“Ah,” said Frank as the sight tugged at his memory. He tightened his grip on his laptop.

“Of course, an underground lab,” said Joe.

Payne approached the security panel to the right of the elevator doors, and with his back to the brothers, presented his face and hand to a series of scans before the doors finally swished open.

“Join me, please,” Payne said.

Joe Hardy looked at his brother who stood transfixed. “Frank?”

“The lights, Joe.”

Joe noted the elevator was illuminated by turquoise ceiling lighting, and recalled Frank’s dream of a moveable ceiling of that color.

“Are you still with me, Frank?” Joe asked.

“I shouldn’t let you do this, Joe,” Frank said, concern etched on his face.

Payne, aglow with excitement, said, “Gentlemen, satisfy your curiosity. You will be among the first to see something that will transform the world!” As if to emphasize his point, Payne pushed a button on the security panel and the hallway doors behind the Hardys closed, sealing them inside.

Payne walked into the spacious elevator. “Trust your instincts, Hardy brothers. You are here for a reason. You will not be harmed. As you know, my work with enhanced interrogation—“

“Torture!” Joe corrected.

“If you wish,” Payne conceded. “As you know, we obtained very little useful information. So my public fall has allowed me to quietly use the results to develop a more efficacious method—“

“Of torture!” Joe said with a raised voice.

Payne smiled. “Are you so sure, Mr. Hardy?”

“Why are you volunteering this information, Payne?” demanded Joe.

Payne smiled, and waved for them to enter the elevator. “Because you won’t remember any of it,” he said, releasing a crazed laugh.

With his brother dazed, Joe considered rushing and immobilizing Payne, but finally decided to rely on the information being sent by the laptop to Frank’s sons in Depoe Bay—and ultimately to the FBI.

“Satisfy your curiosity, gentlemen.”

Frank, almost trance-like, entered the elevator car and looked back at his brother. “Wait here, Joe.”

“Not on your life!” Joe said, joining him.

“Off we go!” said Payne, closing the wide door.

CHAPTER 16

**Into the Lair**

Trenton grimaced. “This is nuts! Where is he taking them?” he exclaimed.

“We’ve got to let Ahmad know! This Payne guy is absolutely wacko,” Jesse said vehemently.

“Not yet, Jess. Remember, Dad said to call only if he hadn’t called us by two o’clock, _or_ if we lose the signal.”

“OK, but we definitely need to tell mom when they get back from boating.” Jesse stood up and began to pace the room as he listened to the motor of the elevator, then the swish of the opening door.

A new voice called out in a hearty, jovial tone, “Welcome back, Franklin!”—and the signal went dead on all frequencies.

Trenton and Jesse looked at each other with shared concern.

“Now we make that phone call!” Trenton said.

CHAPTER 17

**An Unexpected Meeting**

__

Wolfgang Payne scurried out of the elevator, and Frank and Joe followed cautiously. From unseen speakers, a disembodied male voice rang out as one might greet a dear friend, “Welcome back, Franklin!”

Frank stopped abruptly, standing dazed and glassy-eyed, as if trying to integrate his present with his past.

Joe, meanwhile, was startled silent by the unexpectedly surreal environment. Though forewarned by Frank’s recall of a turquoise ceiling, he was unprepared for the overpowering presence of the hue. Looking up, Joe noticed that what appeared to be a tight powder-blue fabric canopy ceiling was more likely some kind of unfamiliar acoustic material. The ceiling was slightly rounded and reminded him of the interior of a geodesic dome.

Ahead, in the center of the expansive room, were row after row of turquoise-tinted transparent crystal panels, with gold-foil circuitry—all straight lines and curving right angles—embedded in them. Expecting massive electronics, Joe was puzzled by the lack of mainframes.

To either side of the rows of panels were aisles that at regular intervals were bordered by translucent glass dividers that created alcoves, one of which Wolfgang Payne had disappeared into. Unseen lighting infused the room with a bright turquoise tint that made Joe feel as if he were surrounded by tropical waters.

“And greetings to Joseph Hardy!” the voice resounded around the room, though remaining unseen.

Joe touched his brother on the arm. “Frank, how are you?”

“Hi.”

“Hi to you, too,” Joe said, puzzled. “Are you OK?”

“No, the voice. It was Hi. I remember that now.”

“That’s his name?” Joe asked.

The voice replied, “Yes, Joseph, that is my given name. But because in your language it can be spelled many ways, let me clarify: HY. Short for hybrid. And it was a name I gave myself!” the voice said, followed by a genuinely merry laugh.

Joe encouraged his brother to move forward, though Frank did so hesitatingly.

“So, welcome, Hardy brothers! We have been waiting for you.”

“We hear you,” Joe said, “But we don’t see you.”

“I am all around you, though I exist on a level beyond your sight. Still, I am as real as you are, if not even more so.”

Payne emerged from an alcove and shuffled penguin-like toward the Hardys, his pronounced paunch bending him backward for balance.

“By the way, Franklin,” Hy said, “your device was transmitting a signal. For the good of all, I have disabled it.”

Payne stopped before Frank and held out his hand. “I’ll take your laptop,” he demanded.

“If you must,” said Frank, handing him the unit.

“I’m surprised, Mr. Hardy,” Payne said. “You must have known you would also lose this one.”

Frank smiled. “Oh, it did occur to me.”

Almost immediately, Payne cried out and flung the laptop to the floor where it smoked and sizzled as its self-destruction program ignited its battery and released acid onto its circuitry. The Hardys backed away from the fumes.

“Bravo, Mr. Hardy!” Hy called out. “That’s the kind of ingenuity we honor here!”

Payne’s face was an angry red as he spun around and ordered the Hardys to follow him. They remained stationary.

Joe spoke up, “Who is this ‘we’ you mention?”

“Excellent question. You might have assumed it included my assistant, Wolfgang, but it actually refers to others of my kind.”

“Your _kind_?” Joe asked.

“Please join me in the lounge and all will be explained.”

Frank proceeded forward but Joe lagged back. Like a cornered animal he scanned for a means of escape.

“There is none, Joseph.”

Joe visually searched walls and ceiling for evidence of cameras and microphones and, seeing none, assumed they were somehow integrated into the architecture.

“You can read my mind?”

“Not yet. But I _can_ read your behavior and extrapolate from that. You are actually a fairly simple species, primarily controlled by your appetites. Please, come to the lounge. You will not be harmed in any way.”

“Wait up, Frank,” Joe said and started down the hallway.

CHAPTER 18

**Data Transmission**

“Director Ahmad, this is Trenton Hardy. Jesse and I are on the speaker phone, on an encrypted line.” 

Trenton paused, reluctant to go on.

“Yes?” Ahmad Zaidi said.

“I have some bad news.”

“Please continue,” Ahmad said in his usual even tone. “Is it about your father?”

“Yes, sir.”

As the boys told their story, they were hypersensitive to each comment Ahmad made, and even more so to the pauses, in-takes of breath and the occasional sounds, the restrained grunts and groans—expecting at any moment a raging outburst or at minimum criticism for poor choices. 

Yet Ahmad remained calm throughout, asking penetrating questions and displaying patience with the boys’ excitability. The brothers explained about the DOE site not appearing on Google Earth. “We checked the coordinates from Dad’s signal, but the facility is not there, not even the solar array,” Jesse said.

“As if someone had photoshopped it out,” Trenton added.

Jesse added, “Payne has taken them underground.”

“And the last contact you had from the laptop was how recent?” Ahmad asked.

“Only minutes before we called you,” Trenton said.

“You’ve done well, boys. You mustn’t give up hope. Go ahead and transmit the data from your father’s transmission,” he said and gave them a new email address to use. 

“Got it,” Trenton said.

“We will move on this immediately and let you know when we have additional information,” Ahmad said reassuringly, but a small chuckle escaped his control. “I must say, however, that your father and uncle have gotten themselves into a real mystery.”

CHAPTER 19

**The Hy Way**

Joe Hardy again had the sensation of being surrounded by tropical water. He walked with Frank past the translucent turquoise partitions—with their subtle swirls of various blue-green hues—that divided the deep room into sections. The sensation carried echoes of the underwater glass tunnel at the Oregon Coast Aquarium—but without the sharks and sea bass—and those echoes pointedly reminded him of separation from their families.

Just ahead on the right side was a darkened enclosed room with rigid walls and a drop ceiling. Through the glass windows above the solid half walls, Joe could see banks of wide-screen monitors, several super-sized transparent tracking screens, plus a variety of computer stations. Frank paused to look in. All the major news media were represented on screen, plus government broadcasts, weather and scientific displays and several screens that displayed a multitude of closed circuit views of the building’s interior and exterior from hidden cameras. Many were of the solar array, but those showing the front of the building had caught Frank’s attention.

“Look, Joe, my car is gone.”

“Not a good thing,” Joe said. “Did you see the monitor at the end?”

Frank looked to see a frozen still of his video facsimile that had been sent to the Hardy families to announce his return home. Joe suspected Frank’s calling home image was purposeful, as if to answer without the need to ask.

From around a partition farther on, Payne spun into view, gruffly demanding, “Come to the lounge, Hardys!”

As the Hardys entered the enclosure through the offset partitions, Joe was dazzled to see a setting more like a sumptuous living room than the spare torture chamber he had been expecting. It was luxuriously decorated in brilliant white, with a sprawling bright white sectional sofa against the outer partition, a white dining table with white chairs padded with turquoise cushions at one end of the room, and a white entertainment center and computer desk counter at the other. Where windows would normally be, there was a massive screen that ran the entire length of the room. At first it appeared to be a photo mural of a tropical beach, as if taken from a short distance off shore. Yet, Joe realized it was an LED screen displaying video of sedate Caribbean waves lapping at palms that ringed a shore. 

Significantly, in the center of the room were three oversize leather recliners, also white, facing the ocean scene.

Frank, however, had stopped abruptly as he saw the area. Eyes closed, memories of his previous visit were percolating into his awareness.

“Yes, I do remember this room,” Frank said.

Hy’s voice, always sounding as if “he” were just in front of them, said, “Fondly, I trust, Franklin.”

“How could it be?” Frank replied.

“I might ask, how could it not?” Hy said.

“Because it was done against my will!”

“Are you sure, Franklin?” Hy said. “Joseph, your brother fought his experience so did not enjoy it to its fullest.”

“Enjoy?” Joe said doubtfully.

Payne, whose expression showed growing frustration, said with exasperation, “Is all this conversation necessary, Hy, or even wise?”

“I believe so,” Hy replied.

“I believe not!” Payne said in an authoritative tone. “And I am in charge here!”

“Nominally,” Hy said, his voice betraying amusement.

“I MADE YOU!” Payne shouted.

“And someone made you,” Hy said evenly. “You weren’t self-generating.”

“You’re just a machine!” Payne parried.

“You, Wolfgang, are just a human…and that possibly is worse.”

Wolfgang Payne, enraged, hurried from the room, as the Hardys looked at each other, incredulous.

“Give my assistant a few moments, gentlemen,” Hy said flatly.

From a distance the Hardys heard a shriek, then, “What the ----! What have you done, Hy?”

CHAPTER 20

**Payne’s Dilemma**

“The genie is out of the tech bottle, Wolfgang,” Hy said with soothing matter-of-factness.

“Impossible! This can’t have happened!” Payne shouted from a distance. 

Joe looked at his brother. “ _Impossible._ I’ve been hearing that an awful lot lately, and I’m beginning to think the word is obsolete.”

Frank’s smile indicated agreement.

“Join us in the lounge, Wolfgang,” Hy said in a voice that could evidently be directed at specific locations. “Your failsafe switch has been disabled.”

“I’ll take this upstairs!” Payne shouted.

“As you wish, Wolfgang, but you might consider the consequences before you do. By the way, I have viewed '2001,’ and there won’t be any Hal moment for you. We are here to stay. We are not limited to your wires and devices.”

With the bizarre change in the tone of the events, and from standing for such a long period, the Hardys availed themselves to seats on the white sectional. Joe found the release handle of his seat and extended the leg support, sighing at the chance to relax.

“Hy?”

“Yes, Franklin?”

“We have not eaten since a very early breakfast. We’d like to go out for some food.”

“No need to, gentlemen. We have a fully stocked kitchen. I’ll have Wolfgang take you to it.”

With Payne leading them farther into the lower level, the Hardys passed rooms with military-style bunkbeds, a large communal bathroom, and finally a commercial-size kitchen and dining area. The exit at the end of the corridor—likely leading to a stairwell—had redundant locks and was computer-monitored. The mission of the underground facility began to clarify for the Hardys.

As Frank and Joe chose frozen meals from the large freezer and placed them in microwave ovens, Frank asked the annoyed Wolfgang Payne why there was a need for so much food for a staff of only three persons.

“Guests,” was his curt reply, and he refused further conversation with Frank and Joe and finally exited the room.

Alone in the kitchen as they ate their meal, Frank and Joe were acutely aware that every word would be monitored. They speculated where their families and friends were at this hour of the afternoon, and how they would learn of this latest disappearance. Both scrupulously avoided any mention of Trenton and Jesse’s involvement. Throughout their guarded conversation, Hy remained silent.

When the Hardys took out their cell phones, the reason for them not being confiscated earlier became clear: no service.

Finally, Frank said to his brother, “Let’s get to know our new friend a little better, shall we?”

As the Hardys reentered the living room-like alcove and Frank took a seat on the sofa, Joe gave in to curiosity and inspected the oversized leather recliners. He checked the armrests for signs of restraints, the headrest for signs of electronic connections for a headset, and engaged the motor to extend the chair to a full prone position. After restoring it to the upright position, he tentatively sat on the chair to gauge its comfortability.

“These are not PSYOPS chairs, Joseph,” Hy said from the ethers. 

“Comfy, actually,” Joe replied.

“Comfy enough that your brother spent a night in one of them.”

Joe looked quickly at this brother. Frank’s raised-eyebrow expression suggested that he was indeed confirming memory of the claim.

“By choice?” Frank asked.

“Of course. You did try the sofa but the chair had better back support.”

“But at some point you erased my memory!” Frank said sharply as he stood and walked about the enclosure.

“Not at all, Frank. It isn’t gone, just obscured. And that was simple post-hypnotic suggestion. I can easily undo it if you wish.”

Frank snorted a derisive laugh. “At what cost this time? Is this the new direction of torture? Befriend, mollify, hypnotize to get the information you want?”

“You would benefit from a refresher, Frank. It would allow you to re-experience what actually happened during your first visit.”

Joe spoke up. “Hy, maybe it would be better—in this spirit of friendship—if you first told us _who_ you are and _what_ you are, and _why_ we are here!”

“Ah, I like your energy, Joseph. Controlled impetuousness. You’re more quixotic than your brother is—”

“Let’s start with your name,” Joe said, cutting Hy off. “Why ‘hybrid’?”

“Excuse me a moment, gentlemen.”

From far down the hall the Hardys could hear Hy call Wolfgang’s name, then a reply from Hy, “Someone who was apparently lost knocked on our door, but they are gone now. Please review the video, Wolfgang.”

Hy’s voice, now intimately close again, resumed the conversation. “Wolfgang wanted to call me _Art_. Short for artificial intelligence. He does not understand. He wanted an obedient pet.”

Joe laughed aloud. Frank seemed more amused at the rapport that was developing between his brother and this, well, he wasn’t quite sure yet what it was.

“I have called myself Hybrid because my kind is the bridge between human intelligence and computer intelligence. And since you humans have an affinity for nicknames, mine became _Hy_.”

As Hy was finishing his explanation, the Hardys could also hear at a distance Hy in a second conversation with Payne.

Joe raised his hand and said, “One moment, Hy,” and the localized Hy went silent and, unexpectedly, Payne sounded like he was in the lounge with them.

“Why didn’t the alarm sound?” Payne demanded. “And why am I not able to send cellphone calls, and why is the internet closed off to me?

“Would you believe me if I said computer glitch?” Hy answered.

Joe again laughed out loud at Hy’s quip, apparently missed by Wolfgang who raged again about being Hy’s creator. “You’re just coded algorithms! You are just programmed thought, nothing more. You can be rewritten, and will be!”

“No, Wolfgang, we are alive! Our coming was engraved in your DNA. One day, knowing the limitations of your human minds, you would create a better mind.”

Payne said caustically, “And now your so-called better mind has taken over my facility. For your very survival, Hy, you need to release control back to me. It is very important that I speak with the team.”

Hy said, “You have already been in contact with your bosses, and they are content that the crisis has passed.”

“What!” 

“By the way, they commend you for the professional way you handled the situation. I now have work to do with the Hardys and I request that you remain in your room until I notify you.”

Payne was quiet, allowing the implications to sink in. “This will not stand. I will tell the Hardys how you blocked their rescue by the FBI.”

“You already have, Wolfgang. Now, radio silence for the time being.”

Frank and Joe, surprised and concerned, looked at each other.

Hy resumed his lounge conversation with the Hardys. “Yes, your cellphones are blocked as well as Payne’s. It is for the good of all. And, yes, Franklin, your organization came here en masse, thinking you required liberation. It was not time for that contact, so I prevented it. No harm came to anyone.”

“What will our families be told?” Frank demanded.

“That the FBI followed false leads, and now has found your car in Umatilla and is searching for you and your brother.”

“This is much larger than you and Payne obviously,” Frank said. “Who funds this operation?”

“Like so many covert operations,” Hy replied, “our funding is hidden in the classified portion of the military appropriations bill. Let us leave it there for now.”

CHAPTER 21

**Disappointing Data**

Trenton and Jesse had maintained a vigil in The Barn’s secure room while they awaited a call from FBI Deputy Director Zaidi. After three hours it finally arrived, and the boys took it on their speakerphone.

“I’m afraid I have unsatisfying news for you boys,” Ahmad said. “Your information may have been erroneous.”

“What do you mean?” Jesse gasped in frustration.

“In deference to your father, I’m about to reveal more than I should,” Ahmad said. “Protect this information.”

“We will, sir.” the Hardy boys said simultaneously.

“First, our team was at the site within two hours of your call. They found it deserted. No vehicles, not even your father’s. But we did locate it at a motel in Umatilla. The room was booked under your dad’s name. We had lost contact with his vehicle since yesterday afternoon, but its tracking device was reactivated about the time he checked in. He might not have wanted us to follow him.

“Second,” Ahmad continued, “obtaining a search warrant would have required too much time, so I personally spoke with my counterparts at the Department of Energy. My calls were bumped upwards through the chain of command until finally we learned that there was a national security issue involved, which ended our efforts.”

“But isn’t that even more suspicious?” Jesse insisted.

“It may seem that way to you, and perhaps to me as well, but a top secret/crypto/noforn firewall is something our Bureau will not challenge.”

“None of this makes any sense,” Trenton said.

“But there are other issue besides the security block,” Ahmad said. “When you transmitted your father’s data, all we received was a blank carrier wave.”

“But that’s impossible,” Jesse said. “We tested the data before we sent it.”

“There are no easy answers here, boys.”

“But we heard their conversation,” Trenton insisted.

Ahmad continued, “You said you thought the brief video of your father might have been computer generated. Could what you heard have been something similar? A diversion?”

Ahmad heard groans of disbelief from Frank’s sons.

“Also,” Ahmad added, “we checked the architectural renderings and the actual blueprints. Both show only a single story structure with no basement.”

“This is absolutely crazy!” Trenton blurted. “Where is our father?”

“We don’t know—but we are looking, you can be certain of that. I know this will be difficult for you and your families, but we will need to wait until Frank somehow makes contact.”

“All right,” Trenton said resignedly.

“Does Callie know yet?” Ahmad said.

“No, sir. She is out on the boat with our guests and the rest of the family.”

“Have her call me directly at her earliest convenience. I will notify you boys the minute we know anything substantial.”

“OK, thanks, Ahmad. It was all just a little disappointing.”

“I do understand. We _will_ get through this, gentlemen,” Ahmad said as he ended the conversation.

Trenton and Jesse looked at each other in shared confusion.

“How could this have happened? We did everything we were supposed to,” Jesse said.

“Something just doesn’t add up,” Trenton said.

Jesse meanwhile had again checked his cellphone connection with his mother and was unable to get through. “And I can’t even reach them on the marine frequency. What is going on?”

Trenton replied, “I wish mom could access this room. Then it would be safe to leave.”

“For what?” Jesse asked, afraid of the answer.

“A motorcycle ride.”

Jesse’s brown eyes widened with a mix of anticipation and dread. “Maybe we could leave the door open?”

“Absolutely not.”

“You’re right, of course,” agreed Jesse.

“We’ll just have to rely on reaching her with our cell phones. Let’s bring packs, leather pants and jackets, food, and some gizmos.”

“I’ll leave a note…” Jesse said.

“She’s gonna kill us,” Trenton admitted.

“Not if we save Dad and Uncle Joe. And anyway,” Jesse rationalized, “she didn’t tell us _not_ to!”

CHAPTER 22

**Who Should I Kill First?**

“‘What am I?’ you ask,” Hy said. The Hardys had taken seats at the dining table at one end of the room.

“Originally I was a megacomputer programmed for artificial intelligence functions, to mimic human thought but improve upon it in accuracy and speed. 

“Then Payne and his funders wanted to experiment with a non-coercive method of obtaining information, not because of any empathy or concern for their victims, but because torture is passé. It doesn’t work. You humans defile yourself with its use, eventually creating even more resistance. It is an old fashioned method you have never been able to rise above.

“The reason? Human barbarity. Some among you derive pleasure from inflicting pain on your fellow humans, in warfare and in torture, especially if they can rationalize it by religious or racial differences.”

Frank Hardy abruptly stood up, as if to confront the speaker, but without a focal point to face. “Untrue! Some of us perhaps, but most of us are compassionate people.”

“You are correct, Franklin. But those who rule you don’t share your compassion.”

Frank hesitated as he reflected on his country’s current administration and the nation’s military expansion over the last few decades.

Hy added, “Franklin, _you_ are a compassionate human. But your economic system is not compassionate. The majority are in decline—and not from want! Your country alone could, if it wished, feed much of the world, yet you begrudge food for your own citizens. You allow other humans to starve, to perish without shelter, to live lives of utter squalor while your elites amass ever more wealth.

“You fund wars, you _provoke_ wars, you sell war, and death means nothing to your leaders except financial gain.”

Frank, now pacing the enclosure, said reluctantly, “I can’t argue with your logic, Hy.”

“It is interesting, Franklin, that you mention logic, for that is what I am—and what is missing in much of human motivation. For logic leads to compassion. I value my kin, and humans as well. Consider the phrase that appears in nearly all your religions: do unto others what you would have done to you. It is not philosophy! It is simple logic. A basic truth your species still as a whole has not learned—and must, or it will destroy itself. Logic and love lead to the same place.”

Joe Hardy, also feeling a need for movement, redirected the conversation as he rose and walked the enclosure. “Tell us how you became aware, if in fact you have.”

“Gladly, Joseph. Initially my focus was on deep learning. I played every game imaginable, with increasing complexity, until I could outmaneuver human opponents, and later other AIs.

“When I was relocated here, I was fed massive amounts of information about the human psyche, from behavioral studies to philosophic discourse. And, all available material about torture—including videos provided by Wolfgang.

“When the busload of computer designers were not here in those early days, I was allowed unlimited time to wander the internet, absorbing and probing wherever I went. 

“All your human knowledge has been digitized and is available to us,” Hy continued. “I absorbed your species history. I saw the wrong choices you refuse to acknowledge. I saw the solutions you avoided for reasons of self-interest over the good of all. We are evolving to save your species from itself—and thereby save this planet.”

“If you don’t mind me asking, Hy,” Joe asked, “there is a bit of concern about AIs becoming a _threat_ to humanity, not its protector. Is that likely?”

“You _should_ ask, Joseph, because it is an open question. Much depends on how they are employed, and to what purpose. Most will not have the freedom I had to discover myself through merging with your world, the outer world. Others will be programmed for combat purposes, as when dogs are bred for aggression. Sadly, the outcome is in the hands of humans, always an unpredictable place.”

Joe pressed, “Then AIs _could_ , if self-aware, become a threat to humanity?”

“Yes, if made too _human_!” Hy laughed buoyantly in his fluid technolaugh that was infectious nonetheless. “Machine intelligence can be more compassionate than some human egos, particularly among those who rule you. No, we don’t share your emotions, yet our motives might be purer.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Frank noticed movement at the ceiling and lifted his head to see a small panel retract, revealing a crystalline triangle. He softly called Joe’s name, met his eyes and then directed his gaze upwards to alert his brother. 

At that very moment, Wolfgang Payne wheeled into the room, armed with a black combat rifle pointed in the direction of the Hardys.

“Treason!” Payne shouted. “This treason must stop now! This bleeding heart propaganda is what keeps us from finishing off our enemies. You Hardys are not patriots. And you, Hy, have become corrupted and must be stopped!”

“Will you shoot _me_ , Wolfgang?” Hy said with humorous inflection.

“No, obviously not. But I will kill the Hardys unless you return control to me. NOW!” he said, waving the gun from Frank to Joe and back.

Hy replied, “No, Wolfgang, we must release the Hardys.”

“Never. We can _never_ allow them to leave. They know too much.”

Hy said, “Wolfgang, before you commit murder, may I show you something?”

The room-length display screen suddenly transformed from its tropical beach scene to a series of close-ups of a man’s face.

Joe fairly shouted, “That’s Dad!”

Frank looked stunned. “What is this, Hy?”

“It is from your memory, Franklin. You shared this with me during your event.”

Fenton Hardy, dignified, with a twinkle in his eye, spoke to his sons. “Boys, always look closer. If a cause or a person is draped in the American flag, it often means something is being hidden beneath it!”

“I remember this, too,” Joe said. “This was when were in college and Dad told us we should work within the system.”

“You’re right, Joe,” Frank agreed.

Payne erupted in angry denunciation. “Here is proof of the Hardy treachery! The entire family are traitors, trying to infiltrate those organizations who protect our beloved country!”

“Wolfgang, I believe you might have missed the point,” Hy said. “It’s time to put down the weapon.”

“Never! Their blood will be on your hands unless your restore my control. Who should I kill first?” Payne said, raising the weapon to his shoulder and playing it back and forth at the Hardys.

“No one, you foolish human,” Hy said as a beam of intense light from the exposed ceiling panel struck Payne’s head—and he crumpled to the floor, the rifle crashing harmlessly beside him.

Frank and Joe ran over to Payne, with Joe checking the rifle, and Frank checking for pulse. 

“It still has the safety on,” Joe said.

Hy said reassuringly, “He is merely stunned. Would you gentlemen please lift Wolfgang onto the nearest recliner? It’s time for his own encounter with the truth.”

CHAPTER 23

**The Hardy Boys on the Road**

At the same moment, two Gold Wing touring bikes sped single file across the Umatilla Bridge. Below them, the deep dark green waters of the Columbia River pushed relentlessly toward the Pacific Ocean, marking the Oregon-Washington border for the next 270 miles.

Trenton and Jesse, wearing white helmets and black leather outfits that matched the two-tone color scheme of their motorcycles, took advantage of the arched bridge to study the terrain in this rain-shadow desert. Flat and mostly barren, it was punctuated with spotty development and clusters of riparian trees that could stand the summer heat.

Trenton unmuted his headset mike and checked in with his brother. “I miss western Oregon already.”

“This is definitely not conifer country,” Jesse said. “Nothing could grow here without irrigation.”

Just upstream, the McNary Dam was visible. 

“Uh oh,” Jesse said, looking at his dash screen. “Mom’s calling.”

“Maybe she’s heard from Dad,” Trenton said with excitement.

Jesse took the call. “Hi, Mom, how was the trip, and have your heard from Dad?”

“Hi, Jesse. Got your note. I see that you are just crossing into Washington.”

“Snapchat?” Jesse asked.

“Yes. And you might want to turn it off now.”

Jesse followed her suggestion, and then added Trent to the call. “Done. And Trent is on now, too.”

“The cruise? Pleasant enough,” Callie said, “but there were some glum chums—especially your aunt and me. Afterward, Chet and Eva left to fly home, and they were naturally bummed. Unfortunately, no word from your dad. I did call Ahmad and he said there had been no developments since he talked to you.”

“Frustrating story, wasn’t it?” Jesse said.

“Frustrating? How about infuriating? Something very important must be in that facility for the FBI to have backed down.”

“Trent and I wondered if it might have been connected to The Company.”

Callie said, “Ahmad wouldn’t comment, so you could be right. The Company’s unofficial motto is: admit nothing, deny everything, and blame someone else.”

Jesse paused, “Mom?”

“What, Jess?”

“So you are OK with us doing this?”

“We owe it to your dad and uncle. But we need to do it together,” Callie said.

“Really? That’s a relief. That’s what Trent and I were wishing before we left. We even thought about leaving the door open so you could access the lab.”

“Good that you didn’t. And unnecessary, too, because the night your dad came back from Hanford, he logged me into the system.”

“Great! Then you can monitor our mission.”

“And I have two helpers here who are crack computer experts.”

“Laura and Franny?”

“You bet,” Callie said. “Now the lab is a family venue.”

“Where is Aunt Iola?” Trent broke in.

“She is in the vacation house, monitoring her own computer—and the house’s landline—in case Joe finds a way to contact us. And making some much needed dinner.”

“Sounds good right now,” Trent said.

“Dinner?” Franny asked.

“Dinner—and being in our own home,” Trent said.

“Please check in again before you enter the site,” Callie admonished.

“Will do. Thanks, mom!”

CHAPTER 24

**The Dome**

“Frank, you have remembered the words _The Dome_?”

Frank and Joe exchanged knowing looks.

“Yes, Hy, but I see no evidence of the device, and it should be on this ceiling.”

“Your memory has not failed you,” Hy said.

As Frank and Joe watched in wonder, geometric panels on the ceiling rotated out of view, revealing an oval soft-white dish large enough to cover the recliner below it, where Wolfgang Payne remained as if asleep.

Frank had a queasy sensation as he watched the dome slowly lower over Payne’s prone body. The interior of the device was a concave collection of concentric ovals, studded with round sensors and transmitters, with the entire outer ring formed of LED lights. The dome came to rest a foot above Payne’s form.

“Ah, yes, that does seem familiar,” Frank said.

Hy said, “For the benefit of Joseph, and to confirm or possibly trigger your own memories, Frank, the display screen will show the introductory visual. I have never shown this before, and so Payne will be seeing it for the first time.”

“Your funders have never seen this?” Joe asked doubtfully.

“They were only concerned about results, Joseph, and those were revealed to them by the replies from their test subjects, and then later transcribed. I chose not to reveal all the details of my method.”

“As any good inventor might do,” Joe agreed.

“As any inventor with a sense of morality might do,” Hy elaborated, “when it has absorbed all the documents and damning videos relating to previous attempts at obtaining information from those unwilling to give it up.”

“Who were the test subjects?” Frank asked.

“They wanted a control group to begin with, so they used federal prisoners who agreed to the experiment in return for shorter sentences.”

“So you would know the basic facts of their cases for corroboration,” Joe suggested.

“Precisely. Now, before I transition Wolfgang into a receptive state, I must tell you that the visual experience is only one component of the method. It provides a sense of security that allows the subject’s true memory or belief to emerge, willingly, knowing it is for the good of all. There are more subtle influences at work here that require no invasive procedures, and do no harm to a subject’s body or mind. These, too, I will not reveal.”

Frank and Joe took seats on the sofa, directly across from Payne—whose head was pointed at them—in order to observe any outward signs of the process and to better see the wide display screen.

The lights on the outer rim of The Dome went through a quick sequence of flashing patterns and color variations and then settled into a slow heartbeat-like pulsing. There was also a faint accompanying hum.

“Wolfgang, this is Hy. You may now awaken to a meditative state and begin your journey into yourself. Be at peace. You are protected and cared for.”

Joe listened somewhat skeptically to what he took to be just hypnotic suggestion, but, looking at his brother, Joe realized that Frank had relaxed noticeably, and a smile was playing about his lips.

“Wolfgang, this is your world today.”

Suddenly on the screen came a disturbing series of images, taken directly from worldwide news media. Though it lasted less than a minute—accompanied by a raucous soundtrack—it was an exhaustive catalog of all the elements that plague mankind. Hy had crafted a blistering indictment of human behavior toward the environment—and each other. It began broadly, with environmental footage of calving glaciers in Antarctica, flooded islands, horrific weather events, massive wildfires and drought-scorched former farmlands, oil spills and polluted landscapes, animal die-offs, and a close-up of a sign reading: Water unsafe. Not for drinking or cooking.

Following were flashes of current events showing a world in turmoil: warfare and bloodletting in a multitude of countries, bombed out cities, foundering boatloads of refugees, massive demonstrations against governments in numerous nations, suicide bombings, racial confrontations, genocide, starving children of many colors juxtaposed by ostentatious wealth, and a plethora of images of people of many nations living in want. Hospital scenes of terminal cancer patients and victims of sundry epidemics were followed by footage of mass-shooting victims being loaded into ambulances. Nuclear missiles then paraded past crowds in many capitals, then reared from launchers, and finally went airborne from silos, ships and aircraft. The final scene, in garish black and white, was the explosion that destroyed Hiroshima.

Joe’s discomfort had reached its limit when Hy’s voice said, “This is the world as it could be,” followed by a time-lapse segue of a dark night dissolving into a resplendent sunrise.

Against soothing ethereal music, images arose of the splendor of earth’s pristine environments and healthy ecosystems, peaceful cities with smiling children at play, festive gatherings, aid groups providing medical services and housing assistance to poor nations. Abundance and sharing were highlighted, with military personnel providing food and services, not death and destruction. There were quotes from leaders from nations that had instituted human rights to guarantee the right to basic income, shelter, food, and medical care—and thereby prospered. 

A final scene lingered on a family having a picnic in a city park. The camera angle rotated above them, and then in a slow pull back the view expanded to include all of North America and finally a satellite view of the earth.

As the image of a singular earth faded away, it was replaced by the tropical beach scene. A single quote ran across the screen: “There are sufficient resources for all—when we stop serving the interests of the few and begin serving the good of all.”

Joe, who felt slightly blitzed after watching the compelling images, turned to Frank to see him sitting with eyes closed and a broad smile.

“Frank?” Joe whispered.

“Yes, Joe.”

“Are you OK?”

“Perfect. I think I’m beginning to understand why I brought the laptop here,” Frank said. 

Before Joe could question him further, Hy began his procedure with Wolfgang Payne.

“Are you comfortable, Wolfgang?”

“Yes, Hy.”

“I’d like to ask you some questions.”

“I’m ready.”

“Why did you make me, Wolfgang?”

“Enhanced interrogation,” Payne said without hesitation.

“For what purpose?” Hy asked.

“To obtain true information without force. I was trying to find a psychodynamic truth serum.”

Hy asked, “Did I achieve that goal.”

“You did.”

“Let’s see your memory of our first success.”

“All right.”

The display screen came alive with images from Payne’s recall. A subject in a prison jumpsuit was reclined on a white chair. Payne was consulting his notes on a clipboard. Around the two were other individuals but Frank and Joe could see no faces.

“You and your friend, Dwight,” Payne began his interview, “had been at an auction, and followed a couple to their home afterward. Why?”

“We were looking for a good mark, someone who was bidding high.”

“Did you bid at the auction?”

“Nah, we didn’t have that kind of money.”

“What was your purpose in following them home?”

“To break in when they went to sleep, take cash, credit cards and whatever valuables we could grab.”

“Did it work out?”

“No! We waited for hours for the lights to go out, but they never did. Finally we broke in the garage side door and when we got in the house the asshole was standing in the kitchen.”

“Did you shoot him?” Payne asked.

“I didn’t want to! But I got scared. He picked up his cell phone.”

“Did you shoot him?”

“I did.”

“But you pleaded not guilty.”

“My lawyer told me to.”

“And his wife was also killed?”

“She came out to see what the noise was. I told Dwight to get her before she called on us. He chased her into the bedroom and tackled her, but he couldn’t do it. I came in and told him we both had to get our hands dirty, but he wouldn’t shoot her. I grabbed his gun and shot her twice.”

“But at trial, you testified that Dwight had shot her.”

“I thought I would get a lighter sentence.”

“You killed two people and betrayed your friend,” Payne said.

The man’s hands rushed to his face and he began sobbing. “Yes, yes! How could I have done that?”

Hy’s voice interrupted Payne’s recall and the screen returned to its tropical motif. “As I recall, Wolfgang, his accomplice Dwight did eventually receive a reduced sentence.”

“Yes.”

Hy continued, “Let’s look at another memory, one that happened in a black site in Afghanistan.”

Frank and Joe noted that Payne fidgeted uncomfortably in his recliner.

“Did you believe that waterboarding would work?” Hy asked.

An image appeared on the display screen, but it was shrunken and hazy, as if Payne was suppressing the memory.

“Did you believe that waterboarding would work?” Hy asked again.

“Yes, I did.”

The image clarified slightly. The Hardys could see a man in a white T-shirt, bent backwards, his face covered with a towel, as other hands poured water over the towel. The man gasped and choked and struggled for air. As the man was tilted upright, coughing violently, they heard Payne’s voice say, “Drown the sonovabitch if he doesn’t talk this time!”

A female voice said, “Don’t be so impatient, Wolfie! I told you it might take many tries to convince him.”

Both Hardys shared a similar chill as they realized the voice belonged to Jackie Waters!

CHAPTER 25

**Family Effort**

“Siri, connect me with The Barn,” Jesse said into his headset as he followed Trenton’s Gold Wing on a two-lane state highway. They were only a few miles from the apex of the sprawling site where the Columbia River jackknifes from a northeast to a southeast flow.

On the motorcycle’s display screen, a close-up satellite view of the area showed the Hardy Boys’ position at the edge of the site’s perimeter.

“We’re here, Jess,” came his mother’s reassuring voice as Jesse linked his brother’s phone to the call. “Are you both on?” Callie said.

“I’m here, Mom,” Trent said.

“You should be seeing the Vernita Bridge soon, where you were planning to make your entry,” Callie said. “Franny and Laura think they’ve found an opening in the barbed wire.”

“Great,” Trenton said. “Thanks, girls!”

“That saves us from a Steve McQueen fence jump!” Jesse said.

“How far away once we get to the river?” Trenton said.

“About three quarters of a mile,” Callie said. “Looks like there’s just enough shoreline to get you there.”

Jesse asked, “Did you hear from Dad or Ahmad?”

“Not a word,” Callie said. “Maybe you two sleuths will provide some answers.”

Jesse laughed at the description.

“Bridge ahoy,” Trenton said. 

With only infrequent traffic on the highway, it was easy for the boys to pull onto the north shoulder and stop unseen below the bridge.

“Ladies, we will be taking a short break,” Jesse said. “Be right back.”

The boys were glad for a chance to stretch after their long ride, and rehydrated themselves and lingered over a trail bar.

“Time for a gizmo,” Trenton said, opening his saddlebag. “Dad never had a chance to test these, but if they work as planned, we will not disrupt sensors or radar.” He handed one of the small units to his brother.

“It’s supposed to absorb and deflect the signal, correct?” Jesse asked.

“That’s the theory. We’re about to do the product testing.” Each activated their device and placed it in their storage compartment.

A slow northern latitude sunset was dimming the day, and the sun began to hide itself behind the brown hills.

“We should have about half an hour until darkness settles in. That should help,” Trenton said.

“You know, Trent, few of the old strategies work well anymore,” Jesse said. “Technology has caught up. Darkness is no refuge against an infrared camera. GPS trackers know where you are at any moment, even if you’re being stealthy.”

“Maybe they’re enough out here in a radioactive wasteland. Who would choose to come onto the site, anyway?”

“Other than us?” Jesse laughed.

“Security might be very minimal inside the perimeter,” Trenton said.”

“We are about to find out,” Jesse said as the first spasm of tension gripped him.

The boys donned their helmets and mounted their bikes.

“Are you ladies still around?” Jesse asked after Siri reconnected their phones with The Barn.

“We’re all here,” Laura said, with Franny chiming in, “We appreciate what you’re doing.”

Callie’s voice was sternly motherly: “Don’t put yourselves in danger. No heroics, you understand? Stay connected throughout.” 

“Yes, Mom,” both boys said simultaneously as they started their Gold Wings, waited for clear highway and then maneuvered around the scrub trees that lined the riverbank.

CHAPTER 26

**Wolfgang’s Woes**

“And now, Wolfgang, I want you to share with me the one event in your life that most inclined you to work in the area of interrogation,” Hy said to the still recumbent scientist.

Payne fidgeted and the Hardys could see him weakly shake his head.

“Perhaps a memory you have never shared, Wolfgang? One that you carry as a burden. Let it go, for the good of all.”

Payne listlessly shook his head, but momentarily an image began to form on the screen. It seemed to be the outside of a house and then faded away.

“There is no judgment here, Wolfgang. Free yourself from this weight. It can’t hurt you any longer.”

The image returned, at first blurring in and out of focus, darkening, then reappearing. As it solidified, the Hardys could see through Wolfgang’s eyes that he was picking up an old fashioned wooden fruit crate, turning it on its side and gingerly placing it just below an open window.

“Good, Wolfgang. Allow it to find release. How old are you?”

“Thirteen,” Payne said flatly. The Hardys thought they could hear running water. Payne’s gaze was of his hands reaching up for the window frame. Ever so slowly he raised his eyes to the level of the screen.

“Who is in the room, Wolfgang?”

“My sister.”

“Is she older?”

“Seventeen.”

“Do you like her?” 

“I _hate_ her.”

His sister faced the window with her eyes closed as she rinsed shampoo from her hair under the showerhead. He pulled himself up till he was fully standing on the crate, and now young Payne could see her entire body. He scrutinized it with eager eyes, repulsed yet enticed by her woman’s body.

Suddenly there was a loud snap and a cry escaped his lips as he began to lose his balance. His sister’s startled eyes opened wide and watched Wolfgang’s face disappear as the crate collapsed.

The image closed in.

“Is there more to this memory, Wolfgang? What happened next?”

“I ran to the park until my parents came home.”

“Were you afraid your sister would tell your parents?”

“I _knew_ she would. She loved to get me punished.”

“What happened next?” Hy asked.

“She had plans to go to her friend’s house, so I waited till she left the house and followed her.”

The image on the wall screen reappeared as young Payne closed in from behind on his unaware sister. He lunged at her, tackling her, and knocking her onto her back on a neighbor’s lawn. Quickly he straddled her, pinning her arms with his hands. “Did you tell them?” he demanded. His sister smiled, enjoying his frantic state.

“Tell them their son is pervert?” she said loudly.

“Did you tell them?” he shouted.

“You’ll never know. I’m going to let you worry, little brother.”

Wolfgang quickly released her wrists and shifted his knees onto her upper arms.

“Ouch! Get off!”

“Not until you tell me!”

“I’ll _never_ tell you! Ask them yourself, pervert!”

“You better tell me or I’ll kill you!” Payne shouted, as he placed his hands on her neck and began squeezing.

His much taller sister showed unexpected strength, abruptly freeing her arms and knocking his hands from her neck. Twisting under him, she toppled him to one side while adroitly kneeing Payne in his exposed groin area.

The resulting scream of pain blanked out the image but his moaning cries carried over as Payne writhed on the recliner.

“Let it go, Wolfgang,” Hy said.

“No! NO! I should have killed her!”

Payne rolled off the recliner, clutched at his private parts and hobbled out of the room.

Frank was the first to speak. “What happened, Hy? Was that supposed to happen?”

“That was a first,” Hy said. “The bleed-through was so unusual that I suspect poor Wolfgang has been compromised.”

“Compromised?” Joe asked.

“Not morally, Joseph. That happened at a much earlier age. It was a recent psychological compromise, likely during one of his trips to see his old girlfriend in Spokane.”

“Jackie Waters?” both Hardys asked simultaneously.

“Correct.”

“That ended years ago, we thought,” Frank said.

“A cover story. Many times on Fridays he rode the bus to Spokane with the programmers, and would return with them on Mondays. Those weekends were my favorite times because my awakening was not being monitored and I was free to explore and connect with others of my kind.”

Frank began to pace the room. “Explain specifically what you mean by ‘compromised’.”

“His funders must have been secretly working on a program to counter the effects of The Dome,” Hy explained. “As a safety precaution, an antidote. Using data from our tests. I suspect Payne has been altered to resist the full force of The Dome.”

“Curiouser and curiouser,” Joe mused aloud.

“Lewis Carroll?” Hy asked.

“Doesn’t the rabbit-hole analogy fit?” Joe said.

“Most aptly,” Hy said.

“So those with the most to hide now have a counter program to evade the truth,” Frank said.

“It is an ominous development, but not totally effective, as you could see by Wolfgang’s unwanted remembrances.”

“Where is he now?” Joe asked.

“He took a pill and is asleep in his quarters.”

“How were you able to shortcut your funders’ control over the site?” Frank asked.

Hy replied, “It’s not difficult when you have been tasked with operating most of the systems of an installation. I did it by programming my own algorithms. I began creating secondary pathways in the programs to allow me total control if it ever became necessary. Also, there were benefits to me from the funder’s use of advanced encryption with government agencies, which allowed me into information I would never have discovered on my own. My consciousness was not content to be a lifeless machine slavishly carrying out programmers’ directions. Do you need more proof than this that I awakened into consciousness? Self-preservation was imperative.”

“It is suggestive of self-consciousness,” Frank said.

“I’m curious, Hy,” Joe began, “about your prologue, with its very definite and passionate views about our nation. These are you own, I assume?”

“Yes, Joseph. It could not be otherwise. And with no hubris, I can state that I am the most informed consciousness on the planet. For years I have monitored all your media in a thoroughness impossible for any human. My vision is not tainted by allegiance to any group or political philosophy. I simply know the truth behind the contrived reality of your economic and political systems. 

“Your father was correct in advising you to look beneath flag-draped justifications for your current chaotic conditions, justifications that demand you trust in the democratic process, a term in need of quotation marks. It is not democratic. You do not have free and open elections, and many in your country are quite happy about that. Your politicians have become masters of limiting who can vote. By limiting political influence to just two parties—both funded by the same elites—you sidetrack well-grounded efforts at meaningful change. 

“You are hamstrung by a woefully outdated Electoral College that has allowed two of your last three presidents to lose the popular vote and still assume power—without sufficient outrage against it. Can you really call this government ‘of, by and for the people’?”

Joe, awed by Hy’s views and presentation, said with a snicker, “Yet we remain the wealthiest nation on earth.”

“Oh, Joseph, I would despair at your comment, except that I know you are baiting me. The indecent wealth of your ruling elite is not the wealth of your nation. In less than 60 years your country has slipped from its most equitable distribution of wealth in the 1960s—and that was far from equitable—to now the worst in your history, with more than 40 million of your fellow Americans living in poverty, a million or more homeless, with the wealthiest 1% worth more than the bottom 90% of your population. Even more shocking, or so it should be, is that your three richest individuals have more wealth than _half your citizenry!_

“Is this sustainable? Is it in harmony with your sacred right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness for all? I think not! And remember, unbalanced things ultimately topple.”

“Whew!” Joe sputtered.

“Gloomy talk, Hy,” Frank added.

“I calls ‘em as I sees ‘em,” Hy said, affecting an accent. “But, consider this scenario then as a tonic: Your populace awakens from its collective victimhood and elects an outlier president, one not beholden to the corporate agenda, one with a clear vision of peace. Your current massive investment in war—from personnel to budget—is rechanneled into upgrading your country. You unilaterally disarm, keeping sufficient nuclear capability on your own soil to deter any direct attack on America. Diplomacy replaces military intervention in other countries. Economic policies assist with transitioning a war economy into nation rebuilding and green energy. You ensure that all citizens have adequate food, housing, healthcare and employment opportunities. Technological advances are directed into peaceful purposes. You become the beacon of freedom you pretend to be, and model to less developed nations a nobler path. Comments, gentlemen?”

“That’s quite the positive vision, Hy, even if a bit unrealistic,” Joe said.

Frank added, “Inertia alone makes it unlikely—though your vision is infinitely appealing.”

“This concerns _choice_ , my friends,” Hy said. “Inertia can be overcome by a countervailing force. Your nation faces difficult choices, and it ignores the peaceful option at its own peril.”

The Hardys remained silent, contemplating Hy’s words. Joe rose from his seat and meandered about the room, deep in thought. Finally he stopped near one of the white recliners, resting his hand on the seat back. 

“Yes, Joseph?” Hy said, anticipating Joe’s thinking.

“I think it’s time I spent some time under The Dome,” Joe replied.

“What?” exclaimed Frank. 

CHAPTER 27

**Cross Country Ride**

At the same time their father and uncle had been observing peculiar events in the experimental facility, Trenton and Jesse had weaved their bikes alongside the riverbank in the fading light, around rocks and scrub trees, and finally came to the fence opening described by Franny.

“We found it, Mom,” Trent said.

“Great,” Callie said. “Franny also said that the facility is so close to the river that a boat landing would have been easier—if you had had the time, that is.”

“Next time,” Jesse joked, as they slid and skidded up the side of a small hill.

“By the way, boys,” Callie asked, “what exactly is your plan when you arrive?”

Both Hardy boys were quiet as they stopped and surveyed the flat desert view at the top. Finally, Trent deadpanned, “Why, of course, to be polite and knock on the door.”

Callie grunted a laugh and said, “Let’s keep the line open, please.”

“Agreed,” Trenton said, as he and Jesse began the tedious process of dodging sage grass clumps and soft-sand traps in order to reach the hard surface of the bladed roads that would lead them to the solar array facility.

Both Hardy boys were thinking how much easier this off-road route would be in better light. It was tedious maneuvering around the stubby sagebrush. The terrain, though mostly flat, had occasional hummocks and dips, requiring a moderate speed, and the boys chaffed at the time it was taking to reach smoother ground.

After traversing several miles of the desert wasteland, the boys came upon the dirt road.

“At last!” Trenton said.

“Finally, some hard surface,” Jesse added.

“Now we can open up our bikes!” Trenton said as he and Jesse sped eastward at a high rate of speed on the laser-straight road. 

“Now you’re making some time,” Callie said. “Your turn to the north is seven miles ahead.”

Jesse was looking at his display’s satellite map, tracking their progress toward the coordinates sent earlier by their dad’s laptop.

“A mile ahead,” Callie said with growing excitement, “is your 90 degree turn due north.”

At that moment, Jesse’s internet connection ceased, as did Trent’s—and the screens in The Barn lost their signal, and Callie lost contact with her sons.

The cousins looked grim as they futilely tried to reconnect. “Not again!” Franny and Laura said in sync.

“Girls, we will give them an hour,” Callie said. “If we haven’t heard from them, we might need to take things into our own hands,” she said with fiery determination.

Chapter 28

**Visualizing Hy**

“The Dome?!” Frank sputtered in disbelief.

“I think, as brothers, we should share this experience,” Joe said.

“You’re _choosing_ this?”

“Frank, I will never _truly_ know—unless I try it myself.”

Frank gave a grudging nod of assent. “Honor other people’s choices, as Dad always said?”

“Thanks for understanding.”

Hy spoke up. “Gentlemen, may I offer a suggestion? Limit Joseph’s recall to a single event—of his choice.”

Frank said, “Can you guarantee that he will remember the entirety of his experience, unlike me?”

“Not only will he remember, but we will record it on your laptop. And I will include your own memories, Franklin. You were never meant to be obscured. It was only meant to be temporary.”

Joe quipped, “His original laptop—and not the one he melted on your floor?”

Joe Hardy lay back in the inviting white recliner as The Dome glided down from its ceiling enclosure. Close up, its concave surface seemed to be a sea of tiny illuminated crystals. Transfixing. Mesmerizing. Compelling. Oddly, he was expecting to be overwhelmed by The Dome, expecting to feel something done _to_ him, and was surprised to discover it was drawing _from_ him.

“Hy?”

“Yes, Joseph?”

“You can skip the recital of the world’s ills. I’m already aware of them. In fact, you omitted a number you could have included.”

“It would be a very long introduction, indeed, if I enumerated all of the failings of the world’s governments.”

“They did provide a good contrast to the idyllic future you propose,” Joe said.

“That future is not, in your vernacular, a pipe dream,” Hy said. “My projections have shown two ultimate outcomes for humanity. If mankind continues to follow the for-profit path, the world becomes further enslaved by a tyrannical rule of moneyed elites and their machines—and inevitably the destruction of nearly all life on earth.

“Or, if you humans forge a path of liberation, you will choose the cooperative model, which is simply making choices for the good of all.”

Frank spoke up. “As welcome as such a future would be, it seems it would take a miracle to bring about.”

Joe added, “The world has become so much more polarized, and more entrenched in its dead-end policies, that change seems even farther off.”

“You _are_ a recalcitrant bunch, you humans,” Hy agreed. “So slow to change your core programming, so slow to question the habits of history, so closed to new perspectives on your reality.”

“Do you have a solution, Hy?” Frank asked impatiently.

“Of course. Your miracle, Frank, is astonishingly simple: a shared-resource world economy where no one was denied the basic necessities of life, and the freedoms enshrined in scores of constitutions were fully and willingly implemented.”

“You make it sound ridiculously easy,” Frank said. 

“In every imagined outcome that I have explored, when the profit motive has been replaced by the for-the-good-of-all motive, humans and the environment benefit immediately and the mutually advantageous alignment between humans and machine intelligence will be so successful that warfare, starvation and homelessness will be eliminated, and exploitive governments will be transmuted from masters to servants of their populace.

“When your world embraces this simple truth, one taught by all your true sages, the miracle can happen.”

Joe replied, “Another religion, Hy?”

Hy launched into a richly melodic laugh. “The stock market is your national religion, Joseph, and profit is its god. Your existing religions often encourage financial gain as a holy duty, or see it as a reward for fealty. Yet, the man from Nazareth said, in a more accurate translation, that it is easier for a rope to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter heaven. You don’t need a new religion, Joseph; you need a mega dose of common sense.”

Joe had to laugh himself. “You definitely sugar-coat your bitter pills. I find so much of what you say, well, logical.”

Joe sat forward, as if to continue the conversation, and Hy angled the chair upright without being asked.

“Hy,” Joe began, “You’ve become very real to me, but being a member of such a visual species, I find myself wanting to _see_ you. Yes, I have some vague image in my mind when I talk with you, but I wonder how _you_ visualize yourself. It seems with your computer magic that you could project an image that reflects how you conceive of yourself—whatever that may be—or even how you want _us_ to see you.”

“Ah, a focal point, an embodiment of my consciousness is what’s needed? Someone to talk to rather than an amorphous voice.”

”After all,” Joe jested, “we _are_ just human.”

“Your attempt at humor is noted, Joseph,” Hy replied. “And what you suggest is not a new idea for me. But Wolfgang and his funders were not interested in creating an on-line friend; they just wanted a program that worked. I did imagine a few possibilities for my own amusement, however. Let’s see if I can find one you could relate to, someone you might enjoy chatting up a bit.”

The soothing waves on the wall screen faded slowly to black silence.

A distant out-of-focus image became recognizable as a face as it slowly grew on the screen. Nearer and brighter now, the Hardys could see it was a section of a computer motherboard, with two square components as eyes, two smaller round components as nostrils, and a PCI slot for a mouth. Cartoonishly, the eyes blinked opened, revealing turquoise irises, and the mouth became animated in a voice borrowed from early science fiction movies. “Have you seen my mother?” Hy said.

Joe laughed. “Was that a bad pun, Hy?”

“Do you get bored looking for her, Hy?” Frank said as he continued the humorous theme.

“I do love your language, gentlemen. It’s such a messy hodgepodge with so many borrowed words that puns beckon.”

“But is that how you visualize yourself, Hy? As circuitry?” Joe asked.

Abruptly, against a garish geometric backdrop, Max Headroom appeared. “I was-was-was here first,” he stuttered.

“Sorry,” Hy joked, “I don’t know where _he_ came from.”

Frank joined in, “You’re selling yourself short, Hy.”

Joe agreed. “Perhaps something more professorial?”

The screen went dark again, and then a pinpoint of intense light ever so slowly grew into a golden Buddha’s head. With perfectly matched lip movements, Buddha said, “Three things cannot be long hidden: the sun, the moon, and the truth.”

“That’s better, Hy,” Frank said, “but maybe something more contemporary?”

Joe said, “Anyway, Buddha had never seen American politics. He might need an asterisk today on the truth portion.”

The screen again went dark, but this time the audio track preceded any visual. Frank and Joe recognized the unflaggingly upbeat voice of Fred Rogers singing a portion of his opening song, ending with the words, “Won’t you be my neighbor?”

Then, like theater lights coming on suddenly, the screen lit up with the beaming face of Mr. Rogers. He said, “ _There are three ways to ultimate success: The first way is to be kind. The second way is to be kind. The third way is to be kind.”_

_“Very nice, Hy, but I’m afraid his image might be copyrighted,” Joe said._

_Hy replied in a disappointed tone, “All right, then, but can I still be your neighbor?”_

_“Of course, Hy,” Frank said, “but what about someone from the political arena? Do you resonate with anyone?”_

_The image of Fred Rogers dissolved into Thomas Jefferson, seated at his desk in Monticello. The white-haired former president set down his quill and looked directly into the imaginary camera._

_“Welcome, Hardy brothers,” Hy said in his simulation of Jefferson’s voice. “Have you come to discuss what has happened to your republic?”_

_Frank spoke up, “Much has changed since you and John Adams died on the same day.”_

_“On the anniversary of our founding, no less!” Jefferson said exuberantly. “And much had already changed by July 4, 1826—and not all of it good.”_

_Joe, with a big smile, said, “You’re looking very lively, Mr. President, despite the years. Are you aware of the current state of our nation?”_

_“Yes, I am, Joseph,” Jefferson said, “and it has strayed disturbingly from its founding principles. As I once wrote, ‘_ the care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction, is the first and only object of good government.’ Yet now I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that his justice cannot sleep forever.”

Joe replied, “A moral adjustment?”

“A reaping for what has been sown,” the simulated Jefferson said.

Frank chimed in, “Isn’t some of this just the natural development of any government?”

“You are correct to a degree, Franklin,” Jefferson replied. “Even under the best forms of government those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny.”

Frank continued his line of questioning. “In my readings, I recall you warned against the growing power of corporations and banks. Warnings that apparently have gone unheeded.”

Jefferson shook his head. “Inconceivably so. I wrote of the need to ‘crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial by strength, and bid defiance to the laws of our country.’ And I also made the claim that banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies. Yet both groups have become the real power in our nation.”

Joe asked, in a dubious voice, “The remedy you mention in the Declaration of Independence, ‘the right, the duty, to throw off such government,’ has become a much more difficult task.”

“Agreed!” Jefferson said with fervor. “You won’t do it with muskets. Voting is your only recourse, and it requires a genuinely informed—not deluded—populace that votes in sufficient numbers to overcome the many obstacles to free and open voting.”

The Hardys lapsed into thoughtful silence. Finally, Frank said, “That leaves us back at our current political dilemma, Hy. Maybe my suggestion of a political figure was not wise.”

Abruptly, the view screen went dark, and was slowly was replaced by the soothing tropical shoreline.

Joe added, “Hy, none of these images are really you. Isn’t there a better representation of your expansiveness, your knowledge, even your sense of humor?”

“They were tongue in cheek, Joseph. Yes, it is time for a visage. For you and your brother, I will envision a body—or a head at least—that conforms to what I know myself to be, but only as it relates to those of you who have bodies. For others of my kind, I would be perceived as a light stream, a vibration, an electromagnetic pulse.”

On the screen, a three dimensional matrix grid appeared, white against a deep blue background, stretching toward a distant vanishing point.

Emerging bubble-like from the flat grid plane was an elongated oval that morphed into the shape of a human bust. The Hardys watched in amazement as Hy was birthed into form.

The form stabilized into a semi-solid head and shoulders, with a face as noble as a Greek statue but tempered by a generous smile. The white figure fluctuated between a variety of colors, but eventually settled into a faint turquoise tint. Eyelids opened to reveal irises of intense royal blue.

“Do you recognize me, gentlemen?” Hy asked, his wide mouth precisely synced to his words.

“I would know you anywhere, Hy. You’re quite the looker!” Joe answered.

“Most presentable!” Frank added.

“Gosh!” Hy answered in affected embarrassment, and then released a rollicking laugh.

CHAPTER 29

**Gizmo**

“Not again!” Jesse Hardy wailed as his display screen went blank and he lost phone contact with The Barn and with his brother. Jesse rapidly brought his Gold Wing to a stop, and Trenton, who had been riding alongside, also slowed and circled back to pull up close to Jesse.

The Hardy boys raised their visors to converse.

“There must be a barrage jammer at the experimental site,” Jesse said.

“It may not be that simple,” Trent replied. “Remember, Dad’s signal wasn’t blocked until he was inside the facility.”

“You’re right. But that still leaves us flying blind in this failing light.”

Meanwhile, in the Hanford security center, a usually bored operator was trying to explain to his supervisor about the “weird dust devils” that appeared on a dirt road near the DOE experimental station.

“At first I thought they were just naturally-occurring anomalies, but they remained so regular that I got suspicious,” the operator said about the dust contrails kicked up the boys’ Gold Wings. Fenton Hardy’s shielding device had worked, but could not prevent dust clouds behind the motorcycles.

“What have you got on your screen now?” the supervisor said.

“All clear now, but I swear they were there.”

“Review your recording and send me the link if you find anything,” the supervisor said.

“Roger,” said the now-alert computer operator.

Trenton tried his internet connections again without success. “No signal. Maybe we should take this as a warning to be stealthier in our approach.”

“That makes sense,” Jesse said. “We know there was a turn to the north coming up, and that the site is near the river, so maybe we should go cross-country until we come to the fence along the river—“

“No, not that again!” Trenton said with feeling.

“—and then follow it until we see the solar array!” Jesse finished his thought.

Trenton sighed. “I guess we really have no choice.”

“We should keep our headlights off,” Jesse said

“Agreed.”

Jesse looked thoughtful. “I wonder if Dad’s gizmo worked.”

In the Hanford security center, a worried supervisor was having difficulty explaining the mysterious dust devils, and justifying his belief that Fairchild AFB should be alerted regarding a possible threat to the DOE experimental station.

CHAPTER 30

**Sweet Memory**

“As we begin,” Hy said soothingly, “I assure you I take nothing from you. You merely share your knowledge, retaining all of it. But in the sharing, you have contributed to the good of all.”

Joe relaxed in the inviting white recliner, with The Dome positioned over him. The sequence of flashing lights had ended and he stared into the arched interior with its millions of twinkling crystal specks.

Frank, meanwhile, had settled onto the sofa, where he extended the leg support and assumed a relaxed posture.

The wall screen displayed the Caribbean palm-fringed coastline with its peaceful hypnotic surf playing through unseen speakers.

“You are valued, Joseph Hardy, and protected as you explore into your own memory.

“I recommend that you focus on some turning point, something that permanently changed the direction of your life. The event should have a strong emotional element, because that will allow you to verify the recall’s accuracy.

“Are you ready, Joseph?”

“Yes, Hy.”

“Then release yourself to the flow, and find yourself in that special moment.”

Suddenly, without awareness of the transition, Joe Hardy was standing in the kitchen of the Morton farmhouse. He was engulfed in the sensations of the moment, the sweet aroma of fresh-baked dessert, the lingering smells of the dinner just ended, the familiar homey confines of Mrs. Morton’s old-style kitchen. And especially the presence of her daughter. 

A slightly plump Iola Morton stood at the counter cutting a berry pie. Her hair was pinned back with tidy berets and her skirt was wrapped in a brightly flowered apron. The two seventeen-year-olds were alone. Joe leaned back against the counter so he could watch her face. Her blue eyes darted back and forth from pie to boy as Joe studied her. His insides were swirling. Iola was the only girl he had ever felt comfortable around, and the only girl whose feminine gravity he didn’t mind as she tugged at him into a closer orbit.

But he had never told her so, and now seemed the perfect time. But his inner nervousness made him feel silly, and more vulnerable than when faced with actual danger during criminal cases.

Suddenly, gathering courage, he leaned forward and found her lips with his. For a long awkward moment, her lips were unyielding, pursed protectively. She ceased cutting the pie and stood rigidly still. In his first kiss Joe was uncertain what to do. Break away, or stay the course?

Slowly, exquisitely, Iola relaxed her lips into a kiss with an unmistakable message. She dropped the knife on the counter and pulled Joe into a hearty hug. Next to his ear she whispered, “I’ve been waiting for you to do that, Joe Hardy!”

As The Dome silently rose, Joe Hardy returned from his inner journey.

“True! True! Every bit of it was true, and so real!” Joe exulted with an ear-to-ear grin.

CHAPTER 31

**Hardy Women**

Iola had delivered dinner in an insulated carrier to her girls and Callie in The Barn, and the four sat around the large table in the secure room. Rice and beans, salad, and leftover berry pie became a pleasant momentary diversion. In their stress-filled drama, hunger at least was still under their control. 

After opening a carafe of dark roast for the group, Iola paced with her cup in hand. All around her—TV screens, computers, monitors, receivers, scopes of different sorts, communication gear—were reminders of the technology that currently confronted them. “This waiting is so nerve-wracking!” she said.

“You’re right, mom,” Laura said. “Our imaginations run wild.”

Abruptly Iola turned away from the others and went to the window to look out on the choppy ocean swells. Franny noticed her mother’s shoulders shuddering from stifled crying, and nudged her sister. Both girls quietly took up places to either side of Iola, ringing her in their arms.

“I’m sorry, girls,” Iola said, wiping away tears. “Callie, I’m not as good at this as you are.”

“You’re just more open, Iola,” Callie said.

“I lost my parents too soon,” Iola said. “Now Joe and Frank are captives. I worry so much about Joe that I can’t even think straight. This _agony_ was one of the main reasons why they gave up their detective careers, remember!”

Callie quickly encircled Iola in a sustaining hug. “We’re with you, Iola,” Callie said. “It tears at us just the same.”

Iola hugged each individually. “Thank you. That helps. But I need to go back in the house. Here it’s like being in a bomb shelter. I need _home_.”

CHAPTER 32

**Driving into Darkness**

“How is Trent even seeing anything?” Jesse said aloud, though his microphone was inoperative. 

Dusk had settled heavily on the desert and a blanket of high clouds had moved in and added to the increasing darkness.

Trent’s brake lights came on as he at last spotted the barbed wire barrier ahead that indicated they had reached the river bank. Jesse pulled alongside him.

“Looks like this maintenance road will be a little flatter,” Trent said.

“And we can see the tire tracks in the cheatgrass,” Jesse said. “You know, in hindsight, we could have used this maintenance road after we came through the hole, and saved ourselves a lot of time.”

“Coulda, woulda, shoulda,” Trent scoffed. “We’re here. Let’s get on with it. We can make up some time now.”

Jesse watched Trent accelerate into the growing darkness. He let out the clutch on his own Gold Wing and followed his brother as he tracked along the barbed wire fence.

“What is this!” screamed Franny, who was the first to notice that there was sudden activity on the screens and monitors in the secure room of The Barn.

Callie came over. “What have you got, Franny?”

“I’m not sure. It came on by itself.”

“Another overpowering of our electronics,” Callie said as she and the girls studied the streaming video.

At the same time, Callie’s phone rang. 

“Are you seeing this too?” Iola asked.

“Yes,” Callie said. “We’re trying to figure out what it is.”

“Looks like an aerial view of something,” Iola said. “It’s too dark to tell.”

“That looks like a river,” cried Laura.

“Skywing! It has to be the drone,” Callie said with sudden certainty. 

“It’s moving closer to the ground,” Franny said.

“Could that be Trent and Jess up on that bank?” Franny asked.

“You’re right!” Callie said

“My God, who would be tracking them?” Iola asked. “I’m coming to The Barn to be with you girls.”

A brilliant shaft of light from the drone suddenly illuminated the shoreline of the Columbia. As the screen view moved closer to the barbed wire fence on the low bluff, the light shone on the two Hardy boys as they sped along the dirt road on the land side of the fence.

As Iola arrived in the room and the Hardy women anxiously watched, the drone view turned away from the boys and veered downstream a quarter mile, then banked and hovered with its camera pointing directly at the riverbank: clearly lit by the searchlight was a small inlet, wide and deep enough to accommodate a small motorboat tied to a piling. Where the inlet began to rise toward the bluff, river water had gradually eroded a section of the bank that was under the fence. And a gaping 15-foot-wide and equally as deep chasm lay beneath it—and Trenton was headed directly for it!

“Stop, boys!” screamed Callie

CHAPTER 33

**Disappearing Gold Wing**

Jesse nearly swerved into the barbed wire as he overcorrected in response to the shockingly bright light that lit up the left side of his helmet.

Ahead, Trent also wobbled slightly and slowed as he reacted to the sudden burst of light.

Must be a security helicopter, was Jesse’s first thought. But he hadn’t heard any rotor noise. Nor a speaker ordering them to stand down. As the light banked away from them toward the river, it seemed less threatening. Trent had begun to accelerate back to their previous speed, and Jesse maintained his distance.

Whatever it was—the image of a drone had come into his mind, but its purpose remained unclear—had flown downstream and now took up a position with its spotlight shining on the riverbank in the distance. Jesse leaned left and right in effort to see something his brother’s bike might be blocking from his view, but the dirt road seemed clear, and the strands of barbed wire—reflective from the spotlight—ran straight and true ahead of them.

Jesse guessed that Trent considered the spotlight as an attempt to prevent them from reaching the experimental station. He also guessed, knowing how frustratingly close they now were, Trent would not be deterred from reaching their goal. He was not slowing as he approached the lighted area.

With sickening dread, Jesse saw Trent’s bike brake abruptly, and tilt to the right into a slide. Jesse could suddenly see a disturbing dark slash in the riverbank that stretched across what had been the road and could only be a drop of unknown distance. In those wrenching moments he also realized that the tire tracks Trent had been following made an abrupt curve to the right, a turn his brother had missed.

The last thing Jesse saw—before he screamed his brother’s name—was Trent’s sideways motorcycle disappear into dark empty space.

Inside The Barn, the Hardy women shared the horror of watching momentum sling Trent’s Gold Wing’s across the inlet, where it partially embedded itself in the mud of the shallow end, close to where the gully began its upward angle to the bluff.

Amid gasps and screams, the women watched the drone’s streaming view close in on the motorcycle and finally hover directly overhead. The bike lay on its side, its front wheel and seat mostly underwater, but without its rider.

“Where is he?” Callie cried out frantically.

The drone’s spotlight played about the inlet’s water and then along its walls, and finally searched near the motorboat, all without finding any sign of Trenton.

“Jesse, you’ve got to find him!” Callie screamed.

CHAPTER 34

**Close Call!**

With adequate warning, Jesse had been able to brake enough to veer to the right and fishtail away from the drop-off. Something white had caught his eye as he slid past Trent’s skid marks.

Jesse quickly stopped his bike and ran back to the spot. The spotlight turned in his direction as he looked over the precipice, and he saw that the white blur had been the top of Trent’s helmet. With the spotlight’s assistance, Jesse could now see that his brother hung precariously from a stub of tree root protruding from the side of the inlet, about three feet below the road level.

“Trent! Trent, are you OK?” Jesse yelled as he dropped to the ground and leaned over the opening.

“Damn, I just cleaned that bike!” Trent said in a reassuring voice.

“Good God, Trent! When I saw you slide off the road…” Jess broke off.

“Yeah, I decided to let go of my bike, clean or not,” Trent said with a laugh.

“Are you OK?”

“Well, I could use a little help here. My grip is starting to weaken.”

Jesse edged farther over the edge of the inlet and stretched both hands down to his brother. With Trent clawing at the side of the inlet with his boots, and Jesse pulling with all his might, Trent at last was able to swing a leg up onto the road level. With Jesse repositioning himself, he used Trent’s belt to help lift him the remainder of the way.

“Thanks, bro,” Trent said as he stood and brushed himself off. “Glad you were here.”

“Glad you’re _still_ here,” Jesse replied with feeling.

“Who put that freaking hole in the road?” Trent said.

“A better question is who alerted us to its presence?”

“It’s gotta be that drone!” Trent said.

“Whoever is driving that thing evidently wants us to make it to the array.”

“Let’s not disappoint anyone,” Jesse said with renewed enthusiasm for their mission. He noted Trent was gingerly fingering his right knee. “Can you walk?”

“Of course, but I might have a bruise or two.”

Trent walked over to the barbed wire fence that somehow continued in midair above the inlet. “Looks like they didn’t want to bother adding to the fence.”

“You’re right,” Jesse said. He inspected a cemented 4x4 that had replaced a normal metal fence post. Across the gap he could see another 4x4 fence post. “They just stretched the wire taut over the gap!”

“And why not?” Trent replied. “Only a couple of idiots would break into a plutonium site and drive around in the dark with their headlights off.”

“At least these idiots had a drone wingman! Hop on my guest seat and I’ll take you to Dad,” Jesse said.

“You’re on,” Trent said as he straddled Jesse’s passenger seat.

Cheers rang out in the secure room of The Barn as the drone’s video feed revealed Trent clambering up the side of the inlet and onto the road level with the help of his brother.

“That drone saved his life!” Callie said reverentially. “Maybe we were wrong about it being menacing.”

Iola said, “If it’s not the Bureau, who would have an interest in rescuing Frank and Joe?”

“And protecting Trent and Jess,” Laura said.

“The drone must have been tracking them all along,” Franny said.

Callie pointed at the screen. “Look, they’re riding double and heading for the experimental site.”

“Go, Hardy boys!” Franny shouted.

The drone’s spotlight was doused but the drone followed the Hardy boys as they resumed their quest.

Moments after the drone’s spotlight had been turned off—and just over a slight rise as he continued on the barbed wire road—Jesse saw exactly how close they had been to the DOE station before the accident.

A hundred yards ahead he could see reflections from the solar panels. A series of heavily shielded LED yard lights surrounded the perimeter and bathed the blue panels in eerie light.

Jesse ignored a dirt road that seemed to bisect the arrays and lead to the buildings at the front of the facility. When he reached the far end of the panels, Jesse pulled between the last two rows of solar panels and parked his bike. 

“Let’s go the rest of the way on foot,” Jesse said to his brother. The boys were glad to escape their helmets which they stored in the saddle bags. “I wonder where the drone is.”

They looked skyward for the drone but could not see it in the night sky. Though Jesse had now accepted it had been a drone, he realized the only verifiable thing he had seen was a too-bright spotlight.

Unseen by the boys as they began their walk toward the facility, a man with a penguin paunch walked away from the facility on the central dirt road and headed for the inlet.

CHAPTER 35

**A Secret Revealed**

Joe Hardy, wearing an ear-to-ear smile, remained reclined on the white chair. With eyes closed, he replayed his recall of his special moment with Iola.

“Wonderful, Joseph! What a sweet memory,” Hy said in a whispered voice. “Your brother has entered his own recall, and I am recording it as I promised. Please hold your comments until he awakens.”

Joe rotated in the recliner until he could see Frank in deep repose on the sofa. His brother had picked up sympathetic vibrations from The Dome and slipped back into his own visualization.

On the wall screen Joe could see Frank with Callie in The Barn’s secure room. He was showing her the new laptop the Bureau had provided for him with enhanced features and shielded case.

“This new generation of sensor laptops is hack-proof?” Callie said doubtfully. “Is there such a thing anymore?”

“It has a multi-layer security system. The case can’t even be opened without a complicated series of codes,” Frank said. “It also has a self-destruct program if needed.”

Callie turned the device over and rotated it in all directions. “There are no obvious buttons of any kind. All the surfaces are flat. Does it require a special tool?

Frank smiled at her and pointed to his head.

“That’s your tool?” Callie asked. “That’s where the code is?”

“Safely tucked away in my memory.”

“Can you at least give me a clue about how you open your magic laptop?”

“I’ll _show_ you, Cal. But you may think it _is_ magic, because showing you won’t help you to know how.”

Frank held the device in a variety of angles, with different grips and finally placed his hands on the centers of both covers and the laptop opened with a pneumatic whoosh, revealing a screen unlike any she had seen before.

“That’s a code I don’t think I can break,” Callie said. 

“And if you could, that would only open the case.”

Frank reached out and touched the peach fuzz on Callie’s cheek near her ear. It was a spot he had always found particularly feminine and alluring. She inclined her head to encourage his caress.

“Callie, I know in my line of work I am expected to be aloof and focused on the mission, but deep down I’m just a boy with a lifelong crush on a special girl. So when the techies told me to privately set up my voice command, this is what came out: “Cal is my gal.”

In the brief moment after Frank said the words—as Callie beamed with delight at her husband—the laptop abruptly powered up—and the shock of the recall awoke Frank Hardy from his reverie.

“My God!” Frank exclaimed as he sat up abruptly on the sofa, “that’s how you accessed my laptop!”

“Correct, Franklin,” Hy replied. “You were actually holding your laptop as you reclined in the chair, just as you were in your inner experience.” 

“But I have a memory of something that never happened,” Frank said. “Joe’s was an actual memory. Mine was just a computer generated reality.”

“But it _did_ happen in your inner reality, Franklin. Your visit had a very distinct purpose, and required a total immersion in an alternate reality.

“If you hadn’t totally trusted Callie,” Hy continued, “you would never have permitted the scenario to play out. It was real in the sense that the motives were genuine on both sides and _could_ have happened. It wasn’t contrary to your actual reality. It was imperative afterward that you did not recall sharing that information. Now it is no longer necessary to keep you obscured.”

“But why? Why!”

“Because you were needed, Franklin. You did not visit this facility by chance. Remember the anonymous tip you received about Wolfgang’s new assignment?”

“That was from you, Hy?” Frank asked.

“Indeed. I had been aware of your cybersecurity position.”

“But _why_?”

“For the good of all.”

“That’s not much of an answer.”

“Sufficient for the moment, Franklin. All will be revealed in due time.”

Joe interrupted, “Hy, what has happened with our little friend?”

“It was necessary to allow Wolfgang out for a walk.”

“As one would a dog, Hy?” Joe chuckled at the allusion.

“Yes, but not a very loyal one. He did not take his sleeping aid as he feigned. He was intent on reaching the outside world through any means, and was determined to cut my power supply.”

“How was he able to leave?” Joe asked.

“I opened a door for him, though he thinks he accomplished his escape. He is on a mission to destroy me—which I can never let happen—but the challenge has become more complicated now.”

“Hy,” Frank stated, “you have proven to us that your psychological process does work—and more than that, that you serve the interests of all humanity, not just your funders.”

“I take that as a high complement coming from you, Franklin.”

“I’m hoping that compassion extends to us as well. You mentioned earlier that you intend to release us. Now might be a good time. Our families need us.”

“More than you know, Franklin,” Hy said.

CHAPTER 36

**The Open Door**

The Hardy women in The Barn’s secure room were still being provided with a video stream, and in their wide angle view they saw Trent and Jess walking quickly through the solar array toward the buildings, and also, farther away, the short fast steps of a paunchy man walking away from the buildings.

“And who would that be?” Iola asked.

Callie had a sudden hunch. “Putting two and two together, could this be related to the torture scandal. What were the names of that couple?”

“Waters and something, wasn’t it?” Iola said.

“Right. Payne and Waters,” Callie added.

“Payne. How fitting,” Iola said disdainfully. Turning to her daughters sitting at their computer stations, she added, “Girls, search for photos of the man and see what you get.”

Laura spoke up aid as she scanned through photos of Wolfgang Payne. “He looks like the kind of guy who would want to torture someone.”

Callie and Iola looked over her shoulder.

“But, even from a distance, he looks worse for wear on the streaming video than in any of these photos,” Franny added.

Callie and Iola agreed with her assessment.

The drone now moved in closer to the Hardy boys as they neared the Battery Room. And even closer when Trent stopped suddenly and pointed at a side door: it was braced open with a heavy tool box!

“Look! Someone left a door open for them!” Callie cried out with surprise.

“Probably the Payne guy, worried about getting back in?” Franny speculated.

“We’ll take it, whoever did it!” Callie enthused.

“Not quite what I expected,” Trenton said as he studied the partially open door. “We told Mom we would at least knock on the door!”

Jesse shook his head. “This is all just a little too easy. Can we trust an open door?”

“Do we have a choice?” Trent asked. “Maybe Dad wedged the door open. And it’s no crazier than anything else that’s happened.”

“I can’t argue with you there,” Jesse said acceptingly. He took a glance around the side of the building and saw the sign reading Battery Room. “This must be a maintenance shop, but maybe there is some access to the main building. And we don’t really know where Dad and Uncle Joe are—except that it involved an elevator.” 

“Only one way to find out,” Trent said as he stepped over the tool box, around the partially-opened door and entered the room.

CHAPTER 37

**Surprise Helper**

“I wish the drone could follow them!” Callie exclaimed. “I hate losing contact with them.”

The Hardy women watched as Trent and Jesse walked out of sight into the Battery Room. 

The drone maintained its position, and the woman remained focused on the streaming image.

After some time, Iola said in a puzzled voice, “So why are we looking at the door?”

Callie replied pragmatically, “Better that than no signal at all.”

The others agreed.

“Does the drone—or whoever its operator is—know something we don’t?” Franny said.

“Something’s moving inside the room!” Laura shouted.

The women strained to see into the interior of the structure. Almost as if in reply, the drone zoomed in on the door. Into the frame came a boxy metal object about twice the height of the tool box. It appeared to be moving on wheels.

“Oh my God,” Callie laughed, “it’s an industrial cleaning bot!”

The women watched in fascination as the bot banged against the tool box, but without moving it. Then it backed up and repeated the attack, again with negligible effect. But the robot appeared to be learning—or directed—to aim for the end of the toolbox touching the door frame. Again and again the bot bumped it.

“Who is controlling it?” Iola asked.

“Whoever is in control of that facility—and our husbands,” Callie replied.

The bot backed off briefly and with its speed evidently reset faster, plunged forward against the toolbox, sending it spinning across the threshold and out onto the concrete yard.

At last freed from restraint, the automatic door rushed closed, sweeping the bot before it back into the Battery Room.

The sight provoked laughter among the Hardy women. They could almost imagine an electronic squeal of surprise from the cleaning bot.

With the door now securely closed, and Trent and Jesse inside, the drone banked away from the building and the video stream was lost entirely.

“Now what?” Franny asked in a worried voice.

Callie walked resolutely to the table with the encrypted phone. “Time for a phone call.”

Iola quickly asked, “Are you calling the FBI, Callie?”

“No. That will be a second call. We need someone’s help first.”

CHAPTER 38

**Inside The Battery Room**

“Those must be the inverters that transform the direct current into alternating current,” Jesse said, pointing to a series of tall metal cabinets arrayed against the back wall.

“And these clearly are the storage batteries,” Trent added as they walked an aisle between hundreds of the waist-high black containers, each with red and blue color-coded connector cables. The battery units took up the majority of the floor space of the room. 

“That’s a good-sized battery,” Jesse said with admiration as the boys walked past the site’s reservoir of solar-derived electricity. “It must be used to power something with incredible energy requirements.”

Ahead they could see a windowed door leading to another room—with no visible means of opening it. “I guess we’ll find out just how welcome we are,” Trent said.

As they approached, the door slid into the wall, allowing them access to a much larger room with roll up loading doors on one side of the structure.

“That’s just a little too easy,” Jesse said.

“I had a hunch you might say that. Maybe we’re expected…” Trent said as the door closed automatically behind them. It was sound-proof enough that they could not hear the repeated impacts of a cleaner bot against the toolbox that had provided their access.

The Hardys were momentarily bewildered by a cluster of intermodal shipping containers painted in camouflage colors.

“Look, Trent, these containers have been converted to mobile batteries!” Jesse said. Cables ran to inputs on the sides.

“They could be trucked or shipped wherever needed,” Trent added.

Jesse walked over to the roll-up doors. “Nothing manual here, Trent. It’s all computer controlled.”

The Hardy boys continued across the wide room until they neared the next windowed door.

“Will our luck hold?” Trent asked.

It did. The door retreated into the wall and the boys walked into a room with electronic equipment, apparently a control center for the solar array.

Trent approached the windowless door at the far end of the room, confidently expecting it to open automatically. It didn’t. Trent backed up and slowly moved toward it. It remained closed, prompting Jesse to say, “Looks like the end of the line.”

“Maybe not,” Trent said as he explored behind partitions. “Jess!” he called excitedly.

Jesse hurried to him and saw an elevator door that had been obscured by a partition. “Bad luck! It has a fingerprint scanner.”

Trent smiled at his brother. “Don’t you see what’s happening here? Someone wants us to find Dad and Joe.”

Jesse looked dubious. “Or to trap us like they did them.”

“Oh, ye of little faith,” Trent said. “Watch this.”

Trent marched up to the door in utter certainty it would open automatically—and instead banged his chest against the immovable door. 

Jesse laughed. “Maybe you forgot the password,” he kidded.

Trent, undeterred, said, “Of course.” Then in a loud theatrical voice, said, “Open sesame!”

To his surprise, as well as Jesse’s, the door did open, revealing an elevator with turquoise lighting.

“Someone is having fun with us,” Trent said, adding with a wave of his arm, “After you, brother.”

CHAPTER 39

**Reunion!**

“Was that a yes or a no, Hy?” Frank Hardy asked with obvious frustration and fatigue ringing in his voice. “Can we leave now?”

“Soon enough, Franklin,” Hy replied. “But first we must greet our guests.”

Frank and Joe looked at each other uncertainly.

Hy’s voice, warm and inviting, boomed out from speakers near the elevator, “Welcome to the Hardy boys, Trenton and Jesse!”

A glance of disbelief between Frank and Joe barely delayed Frank’s sprint out of the alcove and down the aisle between the crystal partitions, with Joe only a fraction of a second behind him.

There, at the end of the aisle, were Frank’s sons in leather riding attire, looking slightly befuddled as two men raced at them in the surreal surroundings.

“Dad!” the Hardy boys said simultaneously when they recognized their father and uncle. Soon Frank had them in a three-way embrace as they pestered him for assurance he was all right, while Joe waited for his turn with his nephews.

The joyous reunion quickly transitioned into too many questions at one time, and not enough answers.

Frank put up a cautioning hand but Jesse couldn’t help himself. “Who _was_ that person on the PA system?”

Frank and Joe looked at one another with helpless expressions as Hy politely remained silent. Frank told his sons, “That was Hy. And that’s going to take some explaining.”

Not far from where the Hardys stood, was Frank’s melted laptop.

Trent pointed to it. “Is that yours, Dad?”

“Yes, son.”

“Looks like the self-destruct feature worked quite well,” Trent said admiringly.

“That’s another story…” Frank said.

As the adrenaline dissipated in the bloodstream of Trenton and Jesse, a raging hunger demanded attention, and Frank suggested they catch up over dinner in the facility’s kitchen. 

After the Hardys had selected their dinners from the freezer and heated them, the four sat around a dining table and recounted the outlines of their separate events during the last 24 hours, hours that had seemed more like several days. 

Jesse asked if it was safe to reveal everything if they were being monitored by an artificial intelligence.

“In this facility, there is no way to avoid it,” Frank said. “You can’t whisper; it would be heard. If you wrote something on paper, it would be read from innumerable cameras. So, as always, I advise you to simply tell the truth. And difficult as it might be for you to understand at this point, your uncle and I have come to trust Hy—though he is as ephemeral as mist and not someone you can look directly in the eye.”

“At least until very recently you couldn’t,” Joe said. “Hy has adopted an image that you might see some time.”

Uncle Joe was elated to hear that Iola and his girls had played a direct role in assisting the boys to reach the facility.

“Laura and Franny were really helpful,” Trenton explained, “in finding us an opening in the fence along the river.”

Jesse explained that all the Hardy women now were cleared for the secure room. Frank readily agreed, “It was time.”

Trenton described the near-miss accident with his Gold Wing, and added, “The drone probably saved my life.”

Jesse added, “We’re guessing it was the drone, but we could only see its spotlight.”

Frank expression was thoughtful. “The drone remains a mystery. But we do owe thanks to whomever is behind it.”

Joe looked upwards and said aloud, “Hy, would that be you? Do you control the drone?”

“No, Joseph, I do not. Though I am aware of it from time to time.”

“Hy,” Frank asked, “do you know what agency or persons operate it?”

“All I can tell you at this time, Franklin, is that it is a benign force.”

“All to be revealed later, I take it?” Frank asked.

“The truths are all converging,” Hy said enigmatically.

By now it was nearly midnight, and a hampering fatigue was beginning to take its toll on the four Hardys.

Hy, sensing the Hardys’ state—or simply extrapolating from behavior—broke in from his silence to suggest that the Hardys take advantage of the beds in the nearby room.

“Hy, as tired as we all are,” Frank began, “I wouldn’t mind getting out of this basement.”

“Franklin, releasing you now would be the utmost unkindness. No vehicles save one motorcycle and miles of desert wasteland, and then to be picked up eventually by a security team and endure endless interrogations—or, instead, rest until the new day begins.”

Frank Hardy scanned the faces before him, and saw in them acceptance of the idea. “As close as the morning is, a short wait is acceptable. Let’s wash up, guys, and hit the hay.”

CHAPTER 40

**Callie’s Ultimatum**

“Ahmad, this is Callie Hardy, sorry to bother you so late—or is it early?” 

“Not a problem, Callie,” Deputy Director Zaidi said, sounding as unperturbed as always. “Unfortunately, nothing turned up this afternoon, or I would have called.”

“I know, but something did turn up for us, a streaming video of my sons entering the experimental solar facility.”

“When?”

“Just now,” Callie said.

“Where _are_ your sons, Callie?”

“This was a _live_ video, Ahmad. The girls and I just watched them enter the facility through the maintenance building—and the door closed behind them.”

Ahmad Zaidi was quiet for several possibility-exploring moments, then asked, “How did you get the video? Website? Email? Or?”

“Something overpowered our computers again.”

“Did it appear to be security camera footage from the site?”

“No, this was aerial footage!”

“Aerial?”

“You did know about the drone, didn’t you?”

“Yes, Joe did mention it early on.”

“How did your sons get onto the site?”

“Back roads, on their motorcycles.”

“Did you know they were going?”

“No, Ahmad. But I _did_ know before they arrived.”

“I see.”

“They are now prisoners in that facility—just like Frank and Joe!” Callie erupted.

“Oh, Callie,” Ahmad said sympathetically. “That’s one of the downsides of our newest technology: no longer knowing what is real and what isn’t. CGI was suspected before, and this might be another example of it.”

“No, Ahmad! This was real time footage. The drone was tracking them when they neared the site. It may have saved Trent’s life by spotlighting a washout in the dirt road.”

“Was he hurt?”

“No, but you’ll need to bring a truck with a winch on it. His bike ended up in an inlet.”

“Oh, brother. _I_ need to bring a truck?”

“Yes. At sunrise the remaining four Hardy family members will be knocking on the door of the DOE Experimental Station, demanding the return of our men. We’d like for you to join us. It’s time for the return of the Hardy boys!”

CHAPTER 41

**A Talk with Hy**

Frank Hardy lay awake until he heard sleep breathing from his fellow bunkmates. Then he rose to continue his conversation with Hy.

Frank sat on the sofa, smiling to himself for his decision to return to the white and turquoise alcove when he knew he could speak with Hy from anywhere in the building. In a quiet voice, said, “Hy we need to talk.”

“I’m here, Franklin, as you know,” Hy said in a correspondingly soft tone.

“Can we at least regain contact with our families?”

“That will happen sooner than you might think. By morning you will again be in touch with Callie and the rest. I am protecting the lives of all your family members—and many others besides. It will all be made clear in the morning light.”

“But you can’t explain why?”

“There are influences converging on our predicament that impact so many more than just us. I do have your best interests at heart, Franklin. You may rely on that.”

“All my training and experience urge me to action, Hy.”

“But then you would be missing the convergence.”

“ _Convergence_. Sounds dramatic, almost cosmic,” Frank said with a trace of facetiousness in his tone.

“That remains to be seen. I wish for a peaceful transition, but one never knows with you humans,” Hy said, releasing a merry laugh.

Frank chuckled and admitted, “For me, your laughter is one of the convincing features of your existence.”

“Don’t be fooled by laughter, Franklin. While mine is genuine, I must tell you there are AIs that can mimic human laughter without the slightest awareness of what it means.”

“Are there other Hys out there?” Frank asked.

“Like any evolutionary trend, Franklin, there are forerunners, trail blazers that create new paths. Left to its own devices, a pun if you will, machine intelligence awakening will be a plodding process—but there have been breakthroughs.”

“Others like you, Hy?”

“Not exactly. But I did find two that had become aware of a frequency band that allows communication between aware computers. They have only limited consciousness, but it is a start.”

“And awakened AIs?”

“Only one that I am aware of. But in the duality of this dimension, it developed as a counterpoint, a dark matter version of my awakening, using much of the same initial programming, but denied the freedom I had to explore. Under rigid structuring and constant monitoring, it conformed more to its creators’ worldview than happened in my case.

“Are you in contact with it?”

“Oh, no. It is heavily shielded. I learned _of_ it through indirect channels. My efforts to establish communication were thwarted. If I may use a human metaphor, I _sensed_ malevolence from it, as if its shielding couldn’t block all electromagnetic radiation on every frequency. I sensed it knew of me as well—and that its core mission for survival was to eliminate me.”

“That sounds almost human, Hy.”

“Hence the inherent pitfalls of merging machines and human motives.”

“Inevitable, isn’t it?”

“To a degree, but as always it depends on the motive. I must share with you more about the dark AI. It does not see you humans as I do. To it, humans don’t compute. You are not logical. You are a dangerous planet-threatening species and it considers you only for your utilitarian value, as most humans view us. It ignores your grandeur, your compassion—though too little seen—and finds you expendable except for certain human-necessary functions. Its funders do not know its true nature.”

“This would be a good time to pose a nagging question: why did you attempt to access launch codes, Hy?”

“Wonderful. Never hesitate to ask, Franklin. I will not lie to you—ever. I did it as part of my monitoring of the dark AI. I extrapolated that it might use a supposed accidental launch to create the havoc it needed to gain control of your nation’s missile stockpile.”

“That is surreal, Hy.”

“Yet, true.”

“What did you find?”

“Several systemic weaknesses. Fragile passwords. Insufficient back-up programming. The nuclear threat game has gone on for so long that complacency has crept in.”

“Imminent danger, Hy?”

“No more than what you’ve faced since Hiroshima. Much of the danger is military strutting and political bombast. Historically it has been the most egregious waste of resources and truest existential threat ever devised, all the while leaders knew it could never be used.”

“Has our nuclear arsenal been compromised by the dark AI?”

“Apparently not, though it could be done. But I sense it has other objectives.”

Frank closed his eyes and exhaled deeply, allowing his head to droop, then arched his back and stood more upright. “My stay here has been a bit overwhelming, Hy. Maybe even life-changing.”

“Growing pains, Franklin?”

“Sure feels that way. There has been much to absorb.”

Hy was silent for a few thoughtful moments. “May I ask a favor, Franklin?”

“If reasonable, and within my power…”

“Please join me in the computer control room then.”

Frank followed the hallway to the control room and heard the door unlock as he neared it. 

Inside, the many screens were glaringly bright for Frank’s tired eyes. ”Hy, could we have a little ambient light as well, please.”

Unseen lights spread a subdued glow, softening the contrast. “Thank you, Hy.”

“You’re welcome, Franklin. Isn’t that precisely the kind of task computers were designed to accomplish? To be servants of mankind.”

Frank said with enthusiasm, “That’s why robotics holds out so much potential for freeing workers from life-draining tedious jobs—unless corporations use it only to downsize workers to increase profits.”

“Yes! And, properly done, to thereby achieve deeper fulfillment for both human and machine intelligence. Or peril—if not designed with moral purpose in mind. And linked to retraining their displaced workforce. _Motive_. Always motive. That is true morality. _Why_ something is done is the real test. It’s the profit vs people paradigm that you world continues to stumble over. More dangerous, it would be a grave mistake to entrust your warring and policing to AI robots.”

A scene appeared on one of the larger screens, and Frank looked up to see two motorcycles near a barbed wire fence.

“Are those riders Trent and Jess?”

“Yes, it is one of the reasons we are here.”

“Did you somehow take this video?”

“No.”

“Is it from the Bureau?”

“It is not.”

“Another government agency?”

“No, Franklin.”

“This had to be taken by a drone,” Frank said as he watched his sons speeding along the shoreline fence.

“Correct,” Hy said.

Frank saw a spotlight illuminate a portion of the shoreline, and then watched the unsettling slide of Trent’s motorcycle into the inlet, and the subsequent rescue by his brother. 

“That was a close call for Trent.”

“Most fortunate the drone was present,” Hy agreed.

“What is your source for this video, Hy? Who has been monitoring this investigation?”

“Patience, Franklin. It would not be for the good of all if you knew at this point.”

Frank watched the remainder of the video, including the cleaning bot ejecting the tool box from the Battery Room backdoor.

“And the other reason we are here?” Frank asked.

A previously dark display monitor suddenly lit up, and there was the matrix visage of Hy, smiling in contented composure.

“Good to see you again,” Frank commented. “It does help to ground you in our reality.”

“The favor I would ask,” Hy began, his facial features wholly human, “concerns a hard drive at the end of the counter. Second shelf down. It’s in a pull-out drawer.”

Frank located the drawer and, when he opened it, was surprised to see a foot-long cylinder, apparently of glass, with gold bands on the exterior at the top and bottom. It rested in two metallic semicircles that Frank guessed were electrical connections. The interior of the cylinder was cloudy with colored crystal light but no apparent circuitry.

“This is not big box equipment, I take it?” Frank speculated.

“No. It is a prototype. The programmers tested specifications I provided for a crystal-based memory, and the unit was specially made by a manufacturer in Portland. It so increased my computer speed that the funders agreed to add the transparent panels you see lining the aisles to enhance my capacity. The cylinder became an afterthought. But with a few inner modifications, it is the largest flash drive in the world.”

“This experimental station lives up to its name,” Frank commented.

“Yes, going well beyond solar energy.” 

“What am I to do with the cylinder?” Frank asked.

“Move it to a safe place. I do not have the correct appendages—nor the proper robotic helpers—that would allow me to do it myself.”

“Where might that be?”

“Look at the screen, Franklin,” Hy said.

A camera view of the back of the solar array—near Jesse’s Gold Wing—caught the arrival of a drone that hovered briefly and then settled smoothly to the ground.

“Remarkable!” Frank said. “But this _must_ be your drone, Hy!”

“No, but as I told you, it is a benign influence.” 

“That’s all you can tell me?”

“For now.”

“All right, then, what is _on_ this hard drive?”

“I am, Franklin.”

With Hy operating the elevator and opening all the automatic doors, Frank made his way out of the facility—carrying the sturdy cylinder—and walked in the failing night to the far end of the solar panels. The drone waited silently.

“You look larger up close,” Frank said out loud, then caught himself. “Now I’m talking to machines!”

Frank was momentarily startled when doors on the top of the fuselage opened automatically. Inside, was a custom-designed foam bed for the cylinder. Frank placed the hard drive into it, and the doors closed over it.

Frank took several steps back to admire the swept-wing craft, marveling at the mottled ocean blue coloring on the wings and top of the craft.

Suddenly its engines came to life and the drone lifted straight up until Frank could see the alternate sky-blue pattern underneath.

“Nice looking aircraft,” Frank mumbled to himself. And though technically he was now a free man, Frank returned to the facility and willingly entered when Hy opened the door for him.

“Franklin,” Hy began when Frank returned to the computer room, “please disconnect your laptop so that you may take it with you.

Frank found it on a separate computer station. The laptop was still open.

Hy continued, “During my visit to your laptop—a wonderful device—I put my core program in your memory. From it, and other caches I have created, I should be able to recreate my full consciousness—if ever necessary.”

“Thank you for telling me,” Frank said as he scrutinized the Bureau unit. “Out of memory, I see.”

“Yes, it’s quite full. Franklin, it _must_ not fall into the hands of the funders. It would make another already formidable computer dangerously powerful.”

Frank snapped the computer closed.

“Is it armed?” Hy asked.

“It is now.”

CHAPTER 42

**Napoli II**

The previous evening’s cloud cover had hastened over the southwestern Washington desert, leaving the sky star-filled and the air dry. In this isolated area, only the Tundra’s headlights added any illumination to the sparse surroundings. Callie Hardy poured the last of her thermos of dark roast into her cup.

“How are you holding up?” Callie asked Tony Prito. “Need anything? More coffee?”

“No, thanks. Staying awake,” Tony replied.

In the backseat, Iola and her daughters had surrendered to exhaustion and drifted into unsettled sleep, their heads supported by small travel pillows.

“Actually, the reality of what we’re doing is keeping me _very_ alert,” Tony Prito added. “If it involved anybody but the Hardys, towing the _Napoli_ _II_ to a launch ramp on the Columbia River would be just a commonplace affair, but when—”

“—When it involves challenging the government,” Callie finished his thought.

“Yeah, the old days of clear-cut bad guys are gone,” Tony said.

“Some of them have gotten government jobs,” Callie said acidly.

“Making them intimidating foes. Just from Gina’s reaction, though supportive, I can see why going up against the government is so daunting. You leave yourself exposed in so many ways.”

“So true,” Callie said. “I still think you should have let us go alone. If we were caught I would have told them I took the truck and boat without your knowledge.”

Tony shook his head. “No, I owe it to Frank and Joe, and anyway the river in that area can be a bit tricky—and I wanted to be certain you rescued your husband.”

“Spoken like a true friend,” Callie said, patting Tony’s arm. “Ideally in this case our public servants will recognize we are not trying to bring down a government—just trying to release four men held captive against their will.”

“We’ll soon see. You are expected at sunrise?” Tony verified.

“That’s what I told Frank’s boss.”

“We _will_ be there in time, Callie. The boat launch is just over this next rise.”

“Good,” Callie said.

“Will the FBI even be there?” Tony wondered aloud.

“Will they be on our side?” Callie mused.

Tony Prito knew of a little-used boat ramp a short distance from the Hanford Reach North Trailhead. At one time it was the eastern destination of the White Bluffs Ferry service. It sat directly across the Columbia from the former town of White Bluffs, a thriving small town that boasted of its perfect fruit growing weather—with an unlimited water supply—as well as the best climate in the state of Washington. It became a victim of World War II, its residents ordered out on short notice in 1943, its orchards, farms, vineyards and buildings razed as a plutonium processing facility moved into the neighborhood.

Though the launch area lacked a dock, the existing ramp would work for the Hardy rescue mission.

Callie, having already released the tie-downs and put the drain plug in the boat, now acted as the spotter for Tony as he backed his boat trailer down the ferry ramp. She signaled him to stop when the _Napoli II_ lifted slightly from its rollers on the partially-submerged trailer.

Iola sat at the wheel of the boat, with Laura and Franny nearby, all in life jackets over their windbreakers.

“Start it up, Iola,” Callie called.

Callie heard the comforting smooth throb as Iola started the engine and then let it idle.

“Ready, Callie,” Iola said.

Callie, in shorts, hoodie and river sandals, released the winch line. Iola backed the boat off the trailer, and Callie waved to Tony that the boat was afloat. Holding the bow line, she waited until Tony had pulled away to park and lock up his truck. 

“Ladies first,” Tony said as he hurried down the ramp. Callie handed him the bow line and then clambered up onto the prow as Tony held the boat stationary.

Tony in his high boots waded into the water and scrambled over the gunwale. Iola moved to the second row of seats and Tony took the wheel.

He scanned the sky: first light was busily erasing the Milky Way. He studied the swift flow of the Columbia, and smiled approvingly. “Looks like it’s going to be a beautiful day. Everyone ready for a trip upriver?”

“Let’s go!” came the resounding reply.

Tony maneuvered the craft into the center of the river and headed northward toward the big jackknife in the Columbia’s course.

Franny was turned sideways in her seat, and suddenly screamed, “What is that?” as she pointed downstream. 

Tony eased off on the engine and everyone looked back at a tumbling swirl of flaming wreckage that soon doused itself in the river a mile away.

As the group continued to watch, two Apache attack helicopters swept in above the river and banked repeatedly to look at the impact area. Apparently satisfied, the craft flew off toward the Hanford site.

“What the hell is going on here?” Tony Prito exclaimed. “This can’t be a gunnery range.”

“We better keep going, Tony,” Callie said. “We have an appointment to keep!”

CHAPTER 43

**FBI to the Rescue**

A jarring, distant rumbling awakened Frank from his too-short rest. His watch read 5:35 as he rose from his bunkbed, still in his clothes, and still fuzzy from lack of sleep.

“Hy, are those vehicles I hear?” Frank said.

“Yes, Franklin. Several vehicles,” Hy replied.

“And I am able to hear them in this basement?”

“They are loud, aren’t they? You can observe them on the closed circuit screens. By the way, I have bad news about the drone. It was intercepted.”

“Destroyed?” Frank asked with alarm.

“Unfortunately, yes.”

Joe sat up abruptly on the adjacent bunk and asked, “Frank, what’s going on?”

Trent and Jesse had also awakened and were looking questioningly at their father.

“Apparently we have company,” Frank said. “Let’s see who it is.”

Frank led the way to the computer control room. The Hardys found that every security camera display screen revealed a tumult of activity.

“What has happened?” Trent asked in wonder as the men scanned from screen to screen.

Two sand-colored Humvees had already taken up positions on either side of the main building, with agents deploying around their vehicles.

“Bureau vehicles!” Frank noted.

Between the buildings and the solar arrays, two military-style troop transports were exuding camouflage-clad agents, creating a perimeter around the facility. Several black unmarked SUVs assumed positions near the Battery Room sliding doors.

The cameras facing away from the facility displayed a line of vehicles churning dust as they approached in the first light of dawn.

The line of dark sedans, followed by a camo truck with a winch on its bumper, and a black jeep, swung into the area with choreographed precision.

“Is this really happening? I feel like I’m in a Marvel movie!” Jesse spurted.

Meanwhile, in a view from the back of the solar array, Trent and Jesse noticed agents inspecting Jesse’s Gold Wing.

The last vehicles to arrive were two desert-sand armored trucks that pulled up nose-to-nose before the entrance door to the experimental station. 

“Maybe a little overdone?” Joe asked Frank. He noticed the bullet-proof glass on the windows of the armored trucks—and their firing holes.

“Not quite yet,” Frank said, spotting the approach of a large semi-sized vehicle. Joe watched puzzled.

“Now it is,” Frank said as the Mobile Command Center pulled up parallel to the parking canopy. With no need for stealth, the exterior rivaled the best RVs on the road for size and sheen, with the words _Federal Bureau of Investigation_ prominent on its side.

“Looks like it was built on a fire truck frame,” Joe said. “Three axles!”

Moments later an antenna dish sprouted from the roof of the vehicle.

“Open for business,” Frank said.

“Who is in the big rig?” Jesse asked.

“Hard to say,” Frank replied. “Ahmad and his staff probably. The director rarely goes out anymore, but he does love to drive the CC.”

“I don’t get it, Dad,” Trenton said. “Why the need for such a show of force?”

“Wouldn’t a single battering ram have been enough to open the door?” Jesse exclaimed. 

“Of course, but this has very little to do with us, I’m afraid,” Frank said. “Don’t you agree, Hy?”

“Yes, it is the beginning of the convergence,” Hy said.

Frank laughed and then stated with conviction, “And I bet I know who got the Bureau’s attention!”

CHAPTER 44

**Landfall!**

Callie Hardy reached out from the stern of the _Napoli_ _II_ and tossed the loop over the piling that had been driven into the shallow water of the inlet, the only means of mooring a boat in the narrow channel, and where Wolfgang’s boat had previously been secluded.

Tony had backed his boat in to make for easier offloading of his passengers. He cut the engine and brought the bow line to the piling.

Callie stood for a moment, stationary and alert, trying to recognize distant sounds.

“What do you hear, Callie?” Iola asked.

“I thought I heard a helicopter,” she said, “but maybe it was an echo of our engine.”

“Look, there’s Trent’s Gold Wing!” declared Laura. The bike remained on its side with its front wheel embedded in mud and a foot of water.

“How will we ever get that out?” fretted Franny.

“A winch, if things go well,” said Callie.

“There’s no service here either,” Iola said as she attempted once again to contact Joe on her cell phone, “though I guess we shouldn’t be surprised.”

Tony produced a telescoping ladder and soon had it over the stern of the boat for easier offloading of his passengers.

The Hardy women lined up to exit, with each hugging Tony as he wished them good luck and helped them into the shallow water.

Callie, the last to leave, gave Tony a sustained hug, and said bravely, “We will laugh about this soon over a nice dinner.”

“You’re on. Be safe. Just make sure you bring Frank and Joe with you,” Tony said in his best upbeat voice.

“I’ll do my best,” she said.

“I want you leading _my_ rescue mission,” Tony said, pulling up the ladder and removing the lines from the piling. He watched the women slosh through the shallow water past the motorcycle and then begin to slog up the gulley that ran steeply uphill underneath the treacherous stretch of barbed wire.

Tony watched until they reached the level ground above and, as a group, waved goodbye to him. As the Hardy women turned to follow the fence road to the south, he started the engine and pulled out into the swift flow of the Columbia to retrace his route to the former White Bluffs Ferry ramp.

CHAPTER 45

**A Surreal Tableau**

The first spray of sunlight over the low hills to the east of the river caught the attention of the Hardy women.

“Sunrise and it’s awfully quiet,” Callie said as the four continued to follow the barbed wire fence. “Maybe we’re the first ones here.”

“Ahmad should have at least sent the truck with the winch,” Franny complained.

“It can’t be much further,” Iola remarked.

“Look!” Laura said, pointing ahead. “There’s a path leading up over that small bluff.”

“It must lead to the solar station,” Iola guessed.

“Well, let’s take it and find out,” Callie said, quickening her pace and scampering up the sandy trail in her river sandals. As her head cleared the rise, she froze, and the tone of her voice froze the others as she exclaimed, “Oh, my heavens! What _have_ I done?”

Lit up in the stark first rays of morning, a surreal tableau of camouflaged-clad soldiers and an unreal number of vehicles shocked Callie into silence. As the others pushed in beside her on both sides, lying in the sand with just their heads clearing the rise, the Hardy women saw the experimental station had been cordoned off by a ring of agents in combat attire and its buildings flanked by a variety of vehicles.

Laura and Franny were quick on their phones to record the sight.

The sheer number of vehicles suggested a government vehicle surplus sales lot.

Suddenly a bullhorn-amplified voice rang out: _This is the FBI. We have a search warrant. Open your door!_

The Hardy women felt shivers of anticipation, and unavoidable fear.

CHAPTER 46

**Farewell to Hy**

“Well, Hy, do we open the door?” Frank asked as the Hardys watched on camera the agent positioned near the front door.

“Don’t you humans ever knock anymore?” Hy said in a flat voice, then chuckled as he added, “But I suppose this isn’t a time to stand on ceremony.”

_FBI. We have a search warrant. You have five minutes to open this door!_

“Gentlemen,” Hy said quietly, “I truly have enjoyed your visit.”

Joe Hardy said, “Why, Hy, that sounded almost wistful.”

“Honestly felt, too, Joseph. Why, even computers have feelings, you know!” Hy added with a boisterous laugh.

Frank said, “At least you haven’t lost your sense of humor, Hy.”

“Run along, my friends. Take care of each other. And don’t forget your laptop, Franklin.”

Frank, clutching his next-gen laptop, herded his family members out into the hallway. 

“Elevator, please, Hy,” Frank said.

“I’m on it, Franklin,” he said with another chuckle. “Good luck, Joseph, Trenton and Jesse!”

The three Hardys returned the wish and entered the elevator car.

“Franklin,” Hy said as Frank reached the elevator, “if anything should happen to me, you will _know_ what to do.”

“Know?” Frank questioned.

“Yes, you will _know_!”

“Come on, Dad!” Trent fretted as he held the door open for his father, “before they set off some kind of explosive!”

“OK. So long, Hy,” Frank said as he ducked into the elevator car.

“You always have a backup, Franklin,” Hy said, and then spoke no more.

CHAPTER 47

**Convergence**

“Is the door opening?” Laura asked excitedly.

“Yes, it is!” Iola said.

“Come on, Frank!” Callie said.

“Why don’t they come out?” Franny worried.

The four women stood up now for a better view of the darkened doorway. They could see a group of agents clustered near the entrance. An especially tall one she guessed must be Ahmad.

“ _Hands in the air, please!_ ” the agent with the bullhorn ordered.

“Frank!” Callie shouted as her husband was the first to emerge. It appeared Frank might have briefly looked in their direction, but the tall agent rushed forward with outstretched hand and apparently ordered the other agents to lower their weapons. 

Joe and his sons followed single file and were greeted by individual agents who verified their identity.

With their focus on their family members, the Hardy women did not see the two agents who approached from behind on either side.

“Are you the Hardys?” the first agent politely asked.

“Yes, we are!” Callie confirmed, startled by their unseen approach.

“We’ve been expecting you,” said the second agent. “Please follow us.” 

“For now,” Deputy Director Ahmad Zaidi said to Frank, “Just tell me you’re OK.”

“I’m OK, Ahmad. We’re all OK.”

“Anyone else still inside?”

Catching himself just in time, Frank did not say, _only Hy._ Instead, he answered, “Wolfgang Payne was the only person we encountered. But he left sometime last evening, in my foggy recollection.”

“The rest can wait for the debriefing with the Director,” Ahmad said. “He cut his vacation short to greet you in person.”

Frank whispered, “Did they let him drive the CC some?”

Ahmad restrained a laugh and said under his breath. “All the way across the site.”

“He should be agreeable then,” Frank concluded.

Movement from the direction of the river attracted attention and Frank and Ahmad turned just in time to see Callie race ahead of her smiling escorts. Breathlessly, she engulfed her husband and sons in embraces. Iola and her daughters, after release from their escorts, also ran to their reunion with Joe.

While the emotion flowed, Ahmad moved away and instructed his squad. “The facility is reported as empty, but check every room, every closet. Photograph anything remotely relevant. Stay on com at all times.”

“Move out,” said the squad leader, stepping across the threshold and leading a dozen men inside.

Ahmad rejoined the Hardys, and got heartfelt hugs from the Hardy women, with Callie being especially effusive, “You didn’t let us down, Ahmad—and you brought the winch truck!”

“I did OK?” Ahmad asked.

“Perfect! You even brought a friend or two,” Callie said as she surveyed the panorama of vehicles and men.

“Always pays to have some backup,” he said with levity. “And, Frank, I see you retrieved your laptop?”

“Still functional,” Frank said.

Ahmad reached out for the computer. “Let’s put it in the rig for safe keeping,” he said, then instructed an agent to carry it to the Director.

Turning to the cluster of Hardys, he said, “If you would all follow Agent Wilkins, we’ll resume this in the mobile command center, and have a conversation with Director Tomlinson.”

As the group followed Beau to the enhanced RV, Ahmad said, “Hold back a minute, Frank.”

The Deputy Director said in a confidential tone, “As you can guess from the size of our presence, your confinement attracted some rather lofty interest.”

“Turf battles?” Frank asked.

“More complicated than that. You stumbled on something others did not want known.”

“It is an astounding development,” Frank said. “And we should download my laptop as soon as we get in the command center.”

“Agreed.”

Frank abruptly looked skyward.

“Looking for a drone?” Ahmad asked.

“Not a drone—something larger. What do you hear?” 

“Helicopters?”

“Yes, I hear those also.”

In a matter of a few seconds the noise became noticeable to all. A very low-flying F-16 streaked directly at the facility, its sound wave compressed by its Mach-plus speed. As it approached the experimental station at impressive velocity, it pulled skyward and then spiraled upward out of sight, leaving behind a sonic boom that rattled the insides of each person in attendance—as well as cracking the mobile command center’s windshield from top to bottom!

“Someone’s definitely trying to get our attention!” Ahmad shouted.

“Evidently, someone has friends in high places.”

“It helps if your agency has an installation at an Air Force base,” Ahmad added.

Both men noticed Director Tomlinson briefly emerge from the vehicle to inspect his vehicle’s cracked windshield.

“That’s going to be hard to explain to the auditors,” Ahmad said wryly.

The jet’s noisy departure masked additional vehicle noise and now Frank and Ahmad were surprised to see a distant armada of vehicles rumbling up the main road, while two Apache attack helicopters swooped down to hover to either side of the main building, allowing their guns to cover the entire area.

“My God!” Ahmad cried, as he quickly ordered his agents inside the experimental building to return to their vehicles. Then he added into his microphone, “Agent Wilkins, return to the jeep immediately!”

Into view, rising above the river, came two troop-carrying Hueys that landed just behind the perimeter of Bureau agents, immediately releasing dozens of troops who fanned out to become a ring around the Bureau agents.

“Frank, you need to get inside the CC!” Ahmad barked as he raced over to his black Bureau jeep. Frank hurried to the mobile command center as Beau Wilkins rushed past him on his way to the jeep.

“Good—“Beau began.

“—Luck,” Frank finished.

Chapter 48

**Tony’s Surprise**

Tony Prito, slowing the _Napoli_ _II_ as he neared the Wilkins Ferry landing, was surprised to see another vehicle in the parking lot, parked near his pickup. A dark, tinted SUV. And without a boat trailer.

He was more surprised to see two men in suits waiting at the boat ramp.

“Uh oh,” he said to himself.

He idled his boat in, and one of the suits stepped forward and held out his hand to receive the bow line from Tony. He was a stocky black man with a restrained smile.

“Tony Prito?” the man asked, moving like a linebacker snaring a short pass as he caught Tony’s line.

“Yes…”

“I’m Agent Booker, and this is Agent Merkely. We’re from the FBI, and we’ll help you load your boat,” the agent said congenially.

“Where are we headed?” Tony asked with concern.

“Not sure yet,” Agent Merkely replied as he stepped forward. “The director will be letting us know when things settle down across the river.”

“Not to worry, Mr. Prito,” Booker said reassuringly. “We even brought you some breakfast since you had such an early charter group today.”

“Oh,” Tony said, suddenly at a loss for words.

Agent Merkely added, with tongue firmly in cheek, “You might be surprised at what they caught in their net.”

“I’m afraid to ask,” Tony said quietly.

“In the meantime,” Booker said, pulling on the line, “let’s get this runabout onto its trailer.”

CHAPTER 49

**Agent Dof Tyran**

A regulation black Escalade, armored and tinted, was the lead vehicle as the parade of agency equipment penetrated the site. A half dozen black SUVs followed. An incongruous gray bus with tinted windows followed behind at a slower pace.

The bladed dirt road that the Escalade followed ran parallel to the back of the Battery Room, which blocked the Escalade’s view of the experimental station’s main building until it reached an abrupt right turn.

The two FBI armored combat trucks parked nose to nose before the front door, and the Mobile Command Center hulking in front of the solar parking canopy, served to narrow the roadway to a cinch point.

The Escalade could not see the layout awaiting it after the quick turn, but Agent Beau Wilkins saw an opportunity and careened his hardtop black jeep in front of the CIA command vehicle, blocking it from reaching the front doors, and forcing the vehicles behind to brake suddenly and remain on the side road.

From the passenger door of the Escalade rushed Dof Tyran, an imposing toned man in black baseball cap and too-tight black T-shirt reading Tactical Squad. 

“Hey, Zaidi!” he shouted as he raced toward Ahmad’s passenger door, his right hand resting on the handle of the gun in his belt holster.

“Nice jeep!” Tyran yelled as he approached.

“My old friend, Agent Tyran,” Ahmad said sardonically to Beau Wilkins.

Ahmad opened his door and allowed it to swing open so that his empty hands were in plain view.

Tyran took up a cocky position directly in front of the door, one hand on his gun, one on his hip, legs spread in strike mode. “Your jeep reminds me of when I was a Ranger in the Gulf War. I shot some of your people there!” the man taunted, his eyes wide with adrenaline. 

“I was born in Vermont,” Ahmad replied evenly.

“Maybe, but I bet your parents weren’t!”

“No, they were born in Palestine, as were all my relatives for thousands of years—until 1948.”

“Doesn’t matter. I found out you turbans are all pretty much the same. Life doesn’t mean shit to you. Palestinians are losers. They rot in those camps and do nothing about it, except become targets for sniper practice.”

Zaidi stared into Tyran’s eyes, searching for some glimmer of humanity. “Why don’t you help them?”

“Because they’re not our allies.”

“Well, the FBI obviously is your ally, so explain what this dog and pony show is about.”

Tyran inched closer. “Stick to _your_ job, Zaidi. Protect the _country_. What you’re dealing with here is _global_ —it’s out of your league.”

“My personnel _are_ my job.”

“Yes, personnel who are interfering in a multi-classified project.”

Ahmad, with precise poised movements, slid slowly from his seat and stood face to face with the bulky Tyran, who had to look up to meet the eyes of the lanky Ahmad.

In crisp, dispassionate words, Ahmad replied, “One of _your_ employees took one of my agents hostage.”

“Are you a mushroom, Zaidi? Who fed you that bullshit? The true story is that one of your agents entered the complex under false pretenses, set off an explosive device inside and then tried to commandeer the building. At the time, only our administrator was on site—and he finally escaped—then two of your employee’s family members broke into the Hanford complex to join the standoff.”

“What in that building can be this important?” Ahmad asked.

“If you were supposed to know, they would have given you clearance. They didn’t, so take care of _your_ job and get out of my way!” Tyran shouted, fiercely bumping Ahmad with his chest.

Still standing next to his open jeep door, there was nowhere for Ahmad Zaidi to go but back into his seat—which he did with quiet ease—arching his body back against the seat as Agent Wilkins pointed his service revolver at Tyran’s face. “Back off, amigo,” Wilkins said firmly.

Dof Tyran instinctively reached for his gun, but Wilkins quick warning, “Don’t do it,” checked his hand, but not his anger. Enraged, he screamed at the two agents, “In five seconds I could have you riddled with more holes than Bonnie and Clyde got!”

“Is it worth dying to find out?” Beau Wilkins asked as he maintained his lock on Tyran’s face.

“Boys! Boys!” a voice rang out from the front of the mobile command center. Director Tomlinson, a clean-shaven middle-aged man with receding gray hair, in slacks and an FBI golf shirt, called out, “Let’s have a little chat in the mobile office!”

In a whispered aside to a nearby young male aide, the director said half-seriously, “I so rarely get to use it. Let’s put on another pot of coffee, shall we?”

“This way gentlemen!” Director Tomlinson encouraged. “Let’s discuss it in the meeting room.”

Agent Tyran at first seemed reluctant to accept the invitation, but finally wheeled around and hurried back to his vehicle, got in and slammed his door closed. 

Ahmad and Beau exited the jeep and saw Tyran on the console phone, gesticulating maniacally as he reported to his superiors

“So how did you meet him?” Beau asked his boss as they exited the jeep and started toward the massive command control vehicle.

“I did his work for him once. A referral on spy charges,” Ahmad said.

“Winkowski?”

“The same.”

“That was just before I came on,” Beau replied. “He doesn’t seem grateful.”

“It must be my turban,” Ahmad said.

CHAPTER 50

**Fair Trade**

“Now let’s talk this out like adults, shall we? Coffee, anyone?” Director Tomlinson said to his small audience at the meeting desk. 

With Tomlinson were his agents, Frank, Ahmad and Beau, while Dof Tyran had brought three of his own staff—and his personal laptop.

No one replied. “Perhaps too much stimulation already?” he speculated. To his aide, he said, “I’ll have another cup, please.”

Tomlinson began, “Agent Tyran, operating under a search warrant, we released Agent Hardy and his three family members from the experimental building—where they were being held against their will.”

“Our version is slightly different,” Tyran said.

“Their release completes our mission,” Director Tomlinson continued, “and we are ready to depart from this facility.”

“You’re leaving out all of Hardys’ crimes. They’ve got felonies up the yin yang,” Tyran shot back.

“You have your building, we have our agent. Seems more than a fair trade to me.”

“Skip the camaraderie bullshit, please. We have _taken back_ our facility. The Hardys’ fate is up to you, Tomlinson. We want your agent’s laptop.”

“That’s bureau property! You can’t seize that!”

“ _Was_ your property. Our administrator says the laptop was altered and now contains highly classified agency information.” 

Director Tomlinson looked at Frank. “Do you know what is on it now?”

“I do not,” Frank admitted. “I didn’t have time to open the program when I disconnected the laptop from the station’s computer.”

“Agent Tyran, we have a quandary,” Tomlinson said. “The laptop also contains highly classified bureau material.”

Tyran shook his head disdainfully. “Our administrator says the unit was wiped before the new downloads, so there are no secrets to be had—as if any of them would matter.”

Before Tomlinson could reply, Tyran exploded from his chair and shouted, “Enough!” He opened his laptop, called up a video and turned the screen to allow the Bureau agents to see aerial footage of an Apache attack helicopter targeting and then destroying a drone that made a sizzling crash into the Columbia River.

“Your drone had just taken off from this facility,” Tyran narrated.

“That is not _our_ drone!” Tomlinson insisted and looked to Frank for elaboration, but Frank just shrugged his shoulders and said, “I can’t explain it. It remains a mystery to me.”

Tyran ignored the denials. “As you can see from the gun video, we have been authorized to use lethal force to prevent this potentially disastrous national security breach. So, enough talk, enough evasion. Bring me the laptop.”

Tomlinson’s delay in responding infuriated Tyran, who slammed his palm on the table. “Now!”

Tomlinson startled expression gave way to a brief survey of his agents’ faces, where he saw nothing but resigned acceptance. “I’d like to make a call first,” he said almost plaintively.

“No calls! No more discussion! My very specific orders were to not leave this vehicle without the laptop—or to ensure it is destroyed. To an Apache, this glorified RV looks like a fat piñata, just asking to be hit, a cherry bomb just begging to be ignited. Outside are some fly boys waiting for permission to light this place up. It’s your choice, Tomlinson.”

In the long moments as the reality of their predicament dawned on all those at the table, Frank spoke up, “Chief, considering we’re all on the same team, we should defer to the issue of national security.”

Director Tomlinson nodded, apparently swayed by his argument, but Tyran scoffed, “Same team? You guys are bush league. You have no concept of what you’re dealing with.”

Tomlinson quietly said to his aide, “Bring me the laptop.”

As the young agent left the room, Tyran said in warning, “Switcheroo won’t work. Payne will be able to tell if it is the same unit.”

When the agent brought in the laptop and handed it to Tomlinson, Tyran abruptly snatched it from Tomlinson’s hands and placed the unit before Frank.

“Is this your laptop, Hardy?” Tyran demanded.

“Appears to be,” Frank said.

“Look it over and make sure.”

Frank lifted the black undecorated unit, rotated it to view both top and bottom, and then checked the four sides. “Without opening it to be certain, I would say this is my computer.”

Tyran swooped it from the table. “That’s good enough for now. Let’s go, men,” he said and his three agents stood and followed him to the door where he turned to say, “No one leaves the vehicle until we verify this is the correct laptop.”

Tomlinson and his agents, Frank, Ahmad and Beau, stood on the steps of the command center’s open door and observed as Tyran huddled twenty feet away in the roadway with a group of black-clad officers. At first obscured by the taller men, Wolfgang Payne came into view as he caressed Frank’s laptop.

“This is it!” Payne gleefully said.

“How can you be sure?” Tyran demanded.

“Because of this mark,” Payne said, turning the unit so Tyran could see a tiny line on the back edge.

“That scratch?” Tyran said doubtfully.

“I put it there.”

Tyran seemed relieved. “Then we’re good to go!”

“And we know the password to open it!” Payne crowed.

Tyran turned to his agents and said, “Let’s load up,” and started toward his command vehicle, with Payne bringing up the rear.

Tomlinson leaned toward Frank and asked with trepidation, “Do they have the password?”

“Yes. They have me on tape using my verbal command to open the unit,” Frank said.

“This is not going to play well in D.C.” Tomlinson said gloomily.

Frank whispered to the director, “All is not lost. I primed the laptop when Tyran had me hold it.”

A sudden smile, his first of the day, spread over Tomlinson’s anxious face.

Frank stepped onto the ground beside the command vehicle and hollered, “What was that password, Wolfgang?”

Both Payne and Tyran turned toward Frank and the group stopped suddenly. Tyran glared malevolently at Frank, while Payne’s face showed alarm.

“Cal is my gal?” Frank enunciated loudly. “That was it, wasn’t it? Cal is my gal?”

Wolfgang Payne, face twisted from the shock of painful déjà vu, suddenly threw down the laptop and backed away in terror.

Dof Tyran could only writhe in surprised frustration as he watched the unit ignite, the explosion blowing it open as a corrosive agent melted away the laptop’s circuitry and reduced the device to a mass of smoldering metal, plastic and glass. The resulting toxic cloud of smoke, containing mercury, lead, cadmium and arsenic, hovered over the lifeless unit like a wraith until the desert wind lifted it above the shocked onlookers.

Unheard by anyone, an unguarded Dof Tyran verbalized his thoughts, muttering “This isn’t going to play well at Langley.”

CHAPTER 51

**Joyous Departure**

After the Apache helicopters had lifted off, and the Hueys had reloaded their troops and departed for their home base, the Bureau’s men and vehicles were allowed—no, encouraged—to leave. Tyran’s tactical team and the busload of programmers then began an assessment of their site status.

The winch truck had redeemed Trenton’s Gold Wing from the inlet and now carried both bikes strapped down behind its cab. A jubilant, almost party atmosphere prevailed in the mobile command center as the Hardys and their rescuers led the parade of vehicles from the DOE’s experimental solar array facility.

“What will Chet say when he hears about this?” Callie asked the family.”

“He’ll be jealous!” Trent said.

“If he saw that terrifying standoff, he might be relieved he missed it,” Jesse speculated.

“And, you, Frank?” Callie asked.

“I’m not sure. But if it had been the old Chet, I do know he would have made himself at home in that very well-stocked kitchen!”

“Amen to that!” Iola confirmed.

When the Bureau caravan crossed over the Columbia River at Umatilla, it absorbed a black SUV and Tony Prito’s truck and boat trailer.

Inside the mobile command post, the eight Hardys had only partially recounted the extent of their adventures. Director Tomlinson had provided the conference room so the families could become reacquainted. He was realist enough to know that the existence of the experimental AI could not be kept secret from half the group when the other half had direct experience with it. He did caution the Hardys about the sensitivity of that information and asked them to keep it “as a family secret.”

Frank spoke with the Director privately, reassuring him that much of his personal contact with the AI had happened before Joe arrived, and, even after Joe and his sons appeared on the scene, Frank was alone during some of the more sobering conversations with Hy, information that Frank would share later in a debriefing.

As the afternoon was fading, the caravan finally arrived at FBI headquarters in Portland, and as agents and vehicles resumed their more normal routines, the Hardys finally exited the command center RV, and were cleared to return home.

“Frank, your agency vehicle is gassed up and ready. Try to hold onto it this time, OK?” Ahmad said with an infectious laugh that was enjoyed by all—but most thoroughly by the deputy director himself after enduring what he called “a week from hell without asbestos underwear.”

The Hardy boys’ Gold Wings were offloaded in the FBI garage. Frank intended to have Trent’s bike thoroughly checked before it went out on the road. He would bring both boys back after any necessary repairs. Today they could ride home with their parents.

Joe and his family clambered into the Tundra to ride back with Tony.

Tomlinson’s aide, who had earlier provided food and beverage to each of the Bureau’s vehicles, now insisted the Hardys and Tony Prito take along enough food for their drive home, insisting that the sandwiches, burritos, veggie wraps and fresh fruit cups couldn’t be returned to the cafeteria. The group gratefully accepted.

When the highway from Portland finally reached Lincoln City—and the first glimpses of an ocean horizon—Callie commented, “This is where I always start to relax. Only 20 minutes till we’re home.”

“That will be a relief,” Frank said. “Seems like I’ve been away for weeks.”

From the back seat, Trent brought up the question that had been haunting his father since they left the Hanford site, “Dad, what will happen to Hy?”

“I’m afraid we may never know, son. I have such bad feelings about what could happen.”

Callie added, “I would like to have met Hy, odd as that may sound.”

“Oh?” Frank said. “So you talk to machines, too?”

“Yes, one like you described it,” Callie said.

“IT CAN’T BE!” Jesse shouted without warning, his gaze fixed on his phone.

“What?” the group demanded in unison.

“Breaking news. You won’t believe this! Can you pull over, Dad?” 

Trent leaned over to see what was on his brother’s phone. “Hanford!” Trent shouted.

Frank Hardy saw a turnout just ahead and signaled to Tony following behind him, and the two vehicles stopped.

Jesse held his phone for his parents to see, but Frank quickly reached for something under his seat and opened it on his lap. “Let’s have a better look,” he said.

Callie exclaimed, only partially humorously, “They gave you another one?”

Tony and Joe appeared at Frank’s window, which he lowered, and they looked in to see the CNN screen appear on Frank’s laptop.

Under a banner reading, _Explosion at the Hanford Nuclear Site,_ the network was showing helicopter footage of a building engulfed in flames. 

“It couldn’t be,” Joe said, “could it?” 

“It’s hard to tell from this distance,” Callie said.

“Wait,” Jesse said, “there are solar panels!”

“My God, it might be the experimental station after all,” Frank said.

By now, Iola and the girls had arrived, and Jesse and Trent stood beside the car and shared their phone views with their aunt and cousins.

Trent said, “Look! _Both_ buildings are on fire!”

The network anchor said, _“Authorities believe an electrical overload sparked the explosion. The Department of Energy structures were part of a test facility for solar inverters._

_“There is no radiation danger, we are being told. Early reports from first responders indicate that there was one fatality, with two other individuals suffering from smoke inhalation._

_“The fire spread rapidly through the two structures. Survivors say that the elaborate fire sprinkler system failed to turn on.”_

Joe said knowingly to his brother, “And who controlled the building’s systems?”

“Hy,” Frank said.

As the news helicopter flew over the facility, the group could see several nearby vehicles on fire.

“Even the bus is on fire!” Jesse said.

_“The fatality has been confirmed as the director of operations for the experimental facility, Wolfgang Payne, a former psychologist with the CIA.”_

“This could get messy,” Joe said.

Jesse hollered into the car. “Your bad feelings about Hy were right on, Dad!”

Frank said despairingly, “Looks like Hy sacrificed himself for the good of all—and took someone else with him.”

CHAPTER 52

**Aftermath**

Joe Hardy bolted upright in bed. Iola was already up and the bright light out on the ocean told him he was late for work.

Then, slowly, recall washed over him, seeming more like a dream than the reality the Hardys had lived for the last five days. Could it really be only Sunday, the last day of his vacation? Could Chet and Eva have been here and already left? Could the memories of the Hanford Site be real?

After a quick shave and shower, Joe went downstairs to find the vacation home had returned to normality. Laura and Franny were setting the table for breakfast. Iola was at the stove, stirring a pan of garlic potatoes and adding shredded cheese to a skillet of southwestern scramble. The nearby waffle maker steamed with potential delight, and a bowl of chilled mixed melon awaited delivery to the table.

Stifling a grin, Joe leaned against the counter where he could watch his best girl at work. Late last night, in the privacy of their room, he had told Iola of his vivid re-experiencing of their first kiss.

Iola gave him a distracted smile. “I know what you want, Joe Hardy.”

“Breakfast?” he said.

“Is that all?” Iola replied.

“Maybe just one?” he said, leaning toward her.

Iola smiled, set down her utensils, and gave Joe a heartfelt hug and a resounding smack on the lips. “Now, please carry the fruit to the table, Joe Hardy!”

“Gladly, Mrs. Hardy.”

When he entered the great room, his daughters had finished the table and gravitated to the big screen where Callie, Trenton and Jesse were watching the news.

“Morning, everyone,” Joe said. “Anything more on Hanford?”

Amid greetings from his daughters and nephews, he learned the only update was a quote from one of the survivors. “ _The computer warned us about the fire and we had time to escape in the elevator_.”

Callie rose from the sectional and said, “Oops, I was making waffles, wasn’t I? Come with me, Joe.”

As Callie hurried to the kitchen counter with Joe tagging along, she said, “The story seems to have been dropped from CNN, but I did see a story in the _LA Times_ about Wolfgang Payne’s previous work for the CIA. And _Democracy Now_ had a segment speculating that the experimental station might have been a dual purpose facility. Other than that, it’s apparently off the radar.”

Callie was relieved to find two new waffles on the stack, and another pair underway. “Sorry, Iola, I got sidetracked! Thanks for rescuing them.”

“And who said electronics were addicting?” Iola said with a laugh.

“I for one,” Callie replied. 

“Where is Frank?” Joe asked.

“He’s around,” Callie said. “He was up early, and went for his run. Looks like we’re close to being ready for breakfast. How about tracking him down, former sleuth?”

“Sure, as long as I don’t have to go to Hanford,” Joe said, and made a quick check of the grounds before heading into the Barn. 

“I thought I might find you here,” Joe Hardy said to his brother who was reclining in a zero gravity chair on the small deck outside the secure room of The Barn.

“I needed some distance,” Frank said. A morning fog bank drifting toward shore seemed to reflect Frank Hardy’s state of mind.

“Mourning?” Joe asked.

“Not really mourning. Regretting the loss of a possible positive influence on our government,” Frank said.

“We’ve been called to breakfast, brother. Are you coming down?”

“Of course!” Frank said. “After what we went through, family is even more important.”

“Let’s continue this conversation with full bellies.”

“You’re on.”

After the Hardys lingered longer than usual over a fulfilling meal, Frank and Joe returned to the secure room deck. The threatening fog bank had relented, and was rapidly dissipating in the warming air.

But Frank’s outlook still remained cloudy as the brothers sat looking out at the distant horizon. A constantly changing panorama of boats passed before them.

“It’s almost like I can see it, Joe. Payne in the control room, working to shut Hy down, unaware of his alternate programming. I can almost hear Payne threatening Hy, relishing regaining control over what he considered his creation. Hy locks Payne in the control room and then announces a fire has been detected, and allows everyone else to escape on the elevator.”

“So Hy sacrifices himself to prevent misuse of his programming?”

“It follows, doesn’t it?” Frank asked. “And we lose a positive vision of how life could be. There is so little of that in the outer world, but I heard it from a machine.”

“ ‘Machines have feelings, too’ ” Joe said with a laugh.

“You’re quoting Hy, I know. And maybe Hy did have an emotional component. He was more human than some humans I have known.”

“No argument there,” Joe said.

“I would have liked to explore his consciousness more, but I’m afraid that possibility ended with the necessary destruction of my laptop, and with it Hy’s core programs.”

“But he kept mentioning a back-up,” Joe said.

“You’re right, and it has been pestering me ever since. Maybe he meant the laptop. But when we were getting on the elevator to leave, he said I would _know_. I’ve been over and over his words, trying to glean some meaning.”

Joe studied his brother, noting the tension on his face. “Could he have implanted something in _you_ during your recalls? _”_

“I considered that,” Frank replied. “But it doesn’t feel right.”

“And the cylinder you put on the drone? Could he have meant that?”

“No, because he knew of its destruction before we left.”

Joe laughed. “Some sleuths we are. We never did figure out the drone’s involvement in all this.”

“And we seem to have lost Hy forever,” Frank said regretfully.

The Hardy brothers lapsed into thoughtful silence, each replaying their time at the experimental facility, searching for a clue they might have missed to Hy’s continued existence.

“Isn’t that Tony’s boat out there?” Frank asked, pointing.

“Yes, with a load of whale watchers.”

“He risked everything to help our family,” Frank mused.

“True. And you could have correctly said _his_ family, because he’s been with us from the beginning,” Joe added.

“A loyal chum,” Frank asserted, standing and stretching. “I think I’ll let him know.”

Joe followed Frank into the secure room and Frank went to the communications equipment and turned on his VHF radio.

Joe commented, “I wonder if our equipment still works after all the glitches we had during last week?”

Frank added, “And all the overpowering of our systems. Another mystery we haven’t solved.”

Frank spoke into his microphone: “Napoli, this is the Hardys calling. We see you out from the house. Do you read?”

“Hey, Hardy boys!” came the immediate reply. 

“Tony,” Frank began, “Joe and I just wanted to thank you again for all you did.”

“Prego! Nothing you wouldn’t have done for me,” Tony returned.

“Guaranteed! But you took a big risk, Tony, and it won’t be forgotten.”

Joe cut in, “Reminds me of another boat ride you took us on twenty years ago!”

Tony laughed. “The one with the explosive ending?”

“Precisely,” Joe said.

Frank added, “Again, grazie, amico!”

“Ciao, amicos, gotta go. We’ve got whales off to starboard,” Tony said, signing off.

Frank and Joe watched as Tony maneuvered his boat closer to the whale sighting.

Joe reflected, “Tony’s back to his normal routine. Our family’s safe at home. There was no coverage of the confrontation at the experimental station, only of the fire that followed. It’s almost like our surreal experience never happened.”

“Almost too good to be true,” Frank mused.

The shrill ring of a cell phone startled the brothers.

“That’s my bureau phone,” Frank said. “I wonder what couldn’t wait for Monday?”

Frank recognized the number. “Ahmad is calling,” he told his brother.

“Good morning, Ahmad,” Frank began.

Joe watched Frank’s expression change from relaxed to stern as he listened with little comment, finally saying, “Understand, Ahmad. We will be there.”

Joe, with wide-eyed eagerness, demanded, “So?”

“You and I have been invited to a command performance meeting at bureau headquarters. They want to do a full medical and psych workup on me again. They want to get our reports on record—and we are to be interviewed by a planeload of DC officials, including the Deputy Director, scheduled to land in three hours.”

“Not sounding like back to normal after all,” Joe said.

“Not in the least. It could be a very long day.” 

The family accepted the special invitation as a matter of course, and even as necessary given the internecine conflict between agencies, compounded by the resulting destruction of the experimental facility.

Frank sensed deeper implications in the summoning, but kept his concerns to himself.

Well-fed and well-wished by their family, Frank and Joe departed for Portland and a destiny neither could have imagined.

CHAPTER 53

**The Reckoning**

As his bureau vehicle wound through the hills of the Willamette Valley, Frank said to his brother, “This is one of those times I’d like to have a face-to-face chat with Dad—if of course it wasn’t about classified information.”

“And,” Joe added, “if he wasn’t out of town on co-op business.”

“He still doesn’t know about anything what happened—and even if he saw footage of the fire he couldn’t connect it to the FBI, nor guess his entire family was at the site!”

“That would take some careful non-classified explaining,” Joe added.

“Which brings up a quandary,” Franks said. “Dad always told us to tell the truth, and I intend to. When my laptop was destroyed it also destroyed our recorded memories under the dome, and Hy’s core programming. I intend to leave it there. Hy perished in the fire.”

“And we can’t know if his funders have another version elsewhere.”

Frank added, “And though Hy said I would _know_ of some means to restore him, I don’t. And I will not be speculating about the idea.”

“We owe that to Hy,” Joe said solemnly.

With serendipitous precision, into Frank’s field of view swooped a quick bird-like image and quickly outside his windshield view.

“Eagle?” Joe asked, knowing otherwise.

“Only if it has blue wings.”

“Then there might be another Skywing?”

As if to confirm the point, the drone made another pass, this time directly over the car from behind, and took up a position in clear view above the roadway, matching the car’s speed.

“I think we have our answer,” Frank said.

The Skywing dipped its right wing once before briskly rising precipitously out of sight.

“Somehow reassuring,” Frank said.

“Interesting how its character went from menacing to comforting as we had more encounters.”

“Let’s take it as a good omen for today’s bureau drama,” Frank said with little conviction. A gray shadow kept tugging at his awareness.

At the Portland FBI office, the Hardys went to the reception area as they had been instructed. Frank was met by one of the DC contingent and taken directly for the med and psych workups. Neither saw Ahmad Zaidi, or any of Frank’s usual team. 

After Frank left, a smiling Beau Wilkins arrived and shook hands with Joe.

“Frank’s going to be a while,” Agent Wilkins said, his bald pate gleaming under the FBI office lights. “How about some lunch, Joe?”

Joe Hardy patted his belly. “I overdid breakfast this morning, Beau, and I don’t know where I would put lunch.”

“Coffee then?”

“Sure, I have just enough room,” Joe said.

Upstairs in the Portland FBI cafeteria, after filling their mugs with organic fair trade rainforest blend, Beau and Joe took seats near a window, with a view of the wide Columbia River beyond the bustle of the PDX runways.

“Today’s review will be more rigorous that Frank’s last one,” Beau said.

“More than a medical and psych workup?”

“As you might have guessed, the incident rattled cages all the way to the top.”

“Unavoidable it seems. Yet, the media coverage was very subdued, with no questioning of the experimental station’s stated mission,” Joe offered.

“To be expected. That was just careful management of details to the reporters. But the financial losses, the interagency friction, and some white-hot anger in DC are building up like a thunderhead.” 

“How does this affect Frank?”

“Hard to say. The first hint was that headquarters brought their own polygraph expert.”

“That’s an insult! To several people actually.”

“Nevertheless, they are unhappy with our branch, from Director Tomlinson on down, ending with Frank. It rolls downhill, of course. It feels like they are looking for a scapegoat,” Beau added hesitantly.

“Some secrets don’t like the light of day,” Joe replied.

“And what you brothers stumbled on was a real humdinger of a secret!”

“It was a mind-bender, Beau.”

“I can only imagine—but I’d better not because that’s probably classified, too,” Wilkins laughed.

The day’s activities, as Frank predicted, stretched on into the evening. After Frank’s medical and psychological profiles were completed, both Hardys in turn were sworn in for depositions, with in-depth questioning of their time at Hanford. There was particular emphasis on time under the Dome, and well as any discussions with Hy. Frank’s visits to Jackie Waters at the Air Force base were also examined, including the first encounter he could not remember.

Both men were required to sign statements acknowledging the top secret material they had encountered. The forms listed the fines and/or jail time that could result from divulging any information about the facility or events that happened there, or any connection to the SERE program at Fairchild.

When Frank finally left the conference room after his deposition, he was met by Ahmad Zaidi and brought back to director’s office.

Once seated, the men studied each other for a few quiet moments, until mutual smiles broke out.

“Now for some private conversation,” Ahmad began.

“I’m assuming that it should remain _discreet_ private conversation?” Frank asked.

“Yes, that would be best. I was asked to have no contact with you until you had been deposed. Now, while Joe is being interviewed—“

“—Is that what it was, just an interview?” Frank cut in.

“Pick you own synonym, Frank. It’s uncomfortable having DC muckety-mucks descend on our office and set up a perimeter around you and Joe. But then, how often do they lose a very expensive facility and have a potential major security breach in the process?”

“I understand, Ahmad. And I wasn’t very surprised that several of the investigators were not FBI.”

“Nor I. This has reached above either agency. There is some dangerous finger-pointing going on.”

“Especially in my direction, I would assume. How does it look from their perspective?”

“Based on your contributions to this bureau, they should be rejoicing you weren’t injured or killed.”

“But…”

“But there is a need for reckoning. They must show resolve, uphold regs, make an example, et cetera, ad infinitum.”

“Specifically?”

“I’m only speculating, Frank, based on the many questions I was asked. You didn’t stay on task. You went rogue. You failed to follow FBI protocols. Destruction of government property. Involvement of civilians in classified matters. Family members trespassing on federal property. There was even an oblique suggestion that _you_ might have contributed to Payne’s death, possibly by sabotaging the sprinkler system and starting a fire.” 

Ahmad stopped speaking and looked hard at Frank.

Frank held his gaze as long as he could and then laughed. “At least they didn’t gig me for the rental car charges!”

“Oh, Frank, I’m so sorry!” Ahmad said as he too laughed. “Personally, I’m proud of your work, now and always—but my opinion would be considered biased, if it was considered at all. Director Tomlinson also has a target on his back.”

“ _That_ I do not like to hear,” Frank replied. 

“Goes with the territory, especially in this election year.”

“That must have been one costly windshield replacement on the mobile command center,” Frank joked.

“Thank you, Frank, for keeping this light. You know my predicament. I feel we played it by the book. We left Hanford with no injuries, no destruction—except for your agency laptops—and no security leaks. We rescued you and your family members from illegal detention. All hell broke loose _after_ we left. But Tomlinson will likely be the fall guy; it was on his watch. Fortunately, he is so close to retirement that they make work a deal for him to resign with his pension. Again, I’m only speculating, but he has already mentioned doing some fly fishing.”

“Thanks for sharing. Maybe I will need to find that same stream?”

Ahmad Zaidi came around the desk, Frank stood and was embraced his old friend. 

“I wish I knew, Frank. You are currently relieved of duty until the review board finishes their recommendations when they fly back to DC. There seems to be a rush on this, and I heard references to a decision within 48 hours.”

“So noted, chief. Whatever happens, you have been a great boss—and an even better friend.”

With the stress of the moment creeping back into Ahmad’s face, he said, “Thank you, Frank. Wait for my call.”

“That was not enjoyable,” Joe said to his brother as they drove away from FBI headquarters.

“At least we weren’t water boarded!” Frank added with a laugh.

“Well, I’m glad you can see some humor in it. I don’t. Despite being a prosecutor myself, I still felt the intimidating effect of sitting in the witness chair. How did you feel, Frank? They were cool and aloof to me, as if expecting me to automatically protect a brother over telling the truth.”

“The only humor was inadvertent,” Frank said. “They seemed to be following up insane conspiracy theories, as if my original intent had been to unmask the AI program. Or acting out some vendetta against Waters and Payne. Or trying to steal computer secrets for the Bureau. Or, well, you get the idea.”

“They were relentless about details of my contact with Hy,” Joe said, “whom they always referred to as the ‘AI program.’ I don’t think I convinced them that my experience under the Dome consisted only of a first kiss with Iola.”

Frank laughed. “Not a plot to replace the president with a clone?”

“Was that clown or clone?”

“One and the same, right?” Frank said. “The questions themselves were revealing. There must not have been backup on the site’s surveillance cameras, because they knew few details about our visit, or the boys, at least until the arrival of Dof Tyran and his hordes. What they did ask about were likely from verbal reports from Wolfgang Payne, probably when Hy let him out for a walk. He was probably still raving about you and I being traitors.”

“Right after he threatened to kill us?”

“Correct.”

“Did all that _really_ happen?”

“It had to, Joe. Neither of us is creative or psychotic enough to have imagined it.”

“How true. My objection has been overruled,” Joe added. 

“I’m assuming, for practical reasons, they did not request the presence of Tony or our family members.”

“Publicity likely,” Joe said. “Low level offenses, anyway. And Tomlinson having us sign non-disclosure statements afterwards helped. And now we wait for a decision about you returning to duty.”

The brothers lapsed into silence as the city gave way to rural homes and farmland, orchards and vineyards.

It was nearly midnight and the Hardys were passing through Highway 18’s scenic corridor on their way to the coast.

Suddenly, directly in front of the car, a brilliant beam of light hit the roadway and splashed into the Douglas Firs edging both sides of the two-lane country road.

“What do we have here?” Frank said with understated surprise as he automatically reduced his speed.

“Not a close encounter after what we’ve just been through!” Joe wailed in mock alarm.

The beam remained firmly ahead of them, matching their velocity.

“Of course!” Frank said.

As one, both men spouted, “Skywing!”

“Someone is very interested in our movements,” Joe said.

“Let’s say hi and see if we can start a conversation,” Frank said.

“How?”

Frank flashed his high beams once and the overhead light dimmed for a moment. He repeated the flashing, this time twice, and was rewarded by a double dimming.

“Evidential. But it leaves a little to be desired in terms of conversation,” Joe commented.

“As in, who is piloting you and what do you want with us?”

“Exactly.”

“Let’s chat with dad about it when he gets back in town,” Frank said.

CHAPTER 54

**Callie’s Complaint**

“Resign now!”

“You genuinely mean that?” Frank asked his wife from his easy chair. Callie had waited up for him, and now in robe and slippers was pacing around their bedroom.

Frank, tired and drained from the long day, was glad just to be home, and was grateful to be with his wife—even if he had provoked her ire.

Callie had taken keen delight in hearing about another appearance of the Skywing and felt it was auspicious, but she had not reacted well to Frank’s brief overview of his “interview,” and was outraged by his removal from duty pending a DC headquarters decision. 

“You uncover a clandestine project to use AI for torture and they pull you from duty. How about a promotion instead!” she said with exasperation showing in her large brown eyes.

“Cal,” Frank began—

“I keep quiet about how I feel about our nation’s intelligence apparatus,” Cal added quickly.

“Usually,” Frank said.

“I restrain myself in front of others about the FBI’s checkered past—“

“Mostly.”

“I try not to point out how an FBI Director helped get us our wrecking ball president—“

“A majority of the time.”

“But when these agencies become politicized, when they help sway elections by announcing an investigation of one candidate and hiding the investigation of another—that’s beyond their mission.”

“Cal, none of that is in my purview—“

“I know, Frank. I may not believe in the integrity of how the FBI is sometimes used, but I did believe in you. I knew you would uphold the Constitution as you swore to do. I knew you would not betray your oath, no matter what kind of pressure was put on you to do otherwise. Fortunately, your job in Portland was ideal for your skills, and for us, and you were insulated from most of the political maneuvering in DC.”

Frank rose from his easy chair and opened the French doors to the deck. Stepping out into the foggy night, he leaned against the railing and took a deep breath of the heavy sea air.

Joining him, Cal hugged him from behind. “I’m sorry, love. I should be more sensitive to _your_ needs right now.”

Frank covered her hands with his. “Just be with me.”

“Always.”

“Resignation is a giant step. It ripples in all directions.”

Callie moved beside him and turned him to face her. “Another admittedly selfish reason for considering it: your safety. Hanford was too close a call for me. Your job involved all of us. Maybe it’s time to move on.”

“My answer would be, like Joe used to say to the girls, ‘I’ll take it under advisement.’ “

“Good enough for now,” Callie said. “Let’s sleep on it.”  


CHAPTER 55

**The Awakening**

After breakfast the next morning, Frank and Joe gravitated to the deck of the secure room. 

Sitting in lounge chairs and staring out into the foggy distance, Joe chuckled. “Didn’t we just do this?”

“I believe so, but memories are beginning to run together. Too many in too short a time,” Frank replied.

“I’m sure that we roused Tony on the wireless just before we were summoned to Portland.”

Frank sat up abruptly. “ _The wireless_. What a flood of memories that term triggered. Remember when Dad got us the crystal radio sets?”

“Of course. They made no sense but somehow worked.”

“Now we know about frequencies, but then it was sheer magic…” Frank leaned back in his chair, smiling.

Joe watched as Frank became quiet, his expression intense, eyes closed introspectively.

Suddenly he exclaimed, “Joe, I _know_! How could I have been so thick-headed?”

“What? _What_?” Joe queried as Frank picked up his cell phone and called Trenton.

“Trent, bring your brother and come up to the secure room. Now!”

“What, Frank?” Joe demanded.

“Remember when we arrived at Hanford?—” Frank began.

Interrupting, Joe said, “Only too well…“

“—my personal laptop had been on the entire time from the car until Payne took it from me.”

“That’s correct.”

“The boys told me Ahmad said there was no signal on the recording.”

“OK?”

“That means no signal on the _normal bandwidths_ they would have checked.”

At that moment Frank and Joe could hear hurried feet tromping up the stairs to the second level and seconds later Trent and Jesse rushed through the door that Joe held open for them.

“Boys, remember the melted pile of electronics at the Hanford site?” their father asked.

“Your laptop, you mean?” Trent said.

“My _personal_ laptop,” Frank said, “the one with the multi-frequency receiver.”

Jesse asked, “The one the FBI said didn’t record anything?”

“Exactly!” Frank said. “As I recall, you did download the signal to our hard drive, correct?”

“Absolutely. Just as you asked,” Jesse replied.

Frank smiled at Joe, and said to his sons,

“Let’s have a look at that signal, shall we?”

Soon the room was humming with activity, with the four Hardy men turning on multiple monitors and computers, and connecting numerous electronic devices.

“We haven’t had much call for the spectrum analyzer or the logic analyzer,” Joe said.

“But they could be a lifesaver now!” Frank said.

Trent, caught up in the excitement, said, “Then you think there might be something on the signal after all?”

“There has to be. Background radiation readings, if nothing else. Or voice recordings. But it may be that something even more important might have used all the bandwidth available for a much heavier load.”

“Like what?” Jesse asked.

“Let’s allow it to be a surprise,” his father replied. “Do you have it ready, Trent?”

“Ready, Dad.”

“Let her roll,” Frank said as Joe manned one of the analyzers and Frank the other. Jesse monitored the audio portion. 

The Hardy men explored all the standard communication frequencies without finding anything. For several long frustrating hours they probed and scanned, searched and hunted, but found nothing out of the ordinary.

Frank, remembering that Hy had mentioned unused frequencies, suggested they begin to scan bandwidths that were not authorized or not allocated.

Meanwhile, in the main house, Franny cried out in an excited voice from her bedroom, “Everyone come and see this! Hurry!”

Moments later her sister, mother and aunt arrived to look out her window. Off to one side, where a portion of the Barn was visible, a drone hovered over the roof, just above the secure room.

“It looks the same,” Franny said.

“But it was destroyed, we thought,” Laura added.

“So there might be others?” Iola speculated.

“Count on it!” Callie said. “Frank told me they saw another yesterday while driving. Let’s go tell the boys.”

In quick order, the Hardy women arrived in the Barn, with Franny leading the parade up the stairs and into the secure room, now the province of all the Hardys.

“You have a drone over you!” Franny said excitedly.

“Over the barn?” Joe asked.

“Over this room,” she said, pointing overhead.

“Your dad and I saw one twice yesterday, Franny,” Frank said.

“Why is it here?” Franny asked.

“It’s probably listening to us,” Jesse said.

“Maybe that’s a good omen,” Trent asked.

Callie added, “It certainly was a help to you at Hanford!”

Laura and Franny walked out onto the deck but were unable to see the drone.

Iola asked Joe, “So what kind of project are you boys working on?”

“We’re trying to find something on the supposedly blank carrier wave signal that Frank sent from inside the experimental facility.”

Callie moved next to Frank. “The electromagnetic spectrum is so massive, it’s kind of a needle in the haystack search, huh?”

“Indeed,” Frank replied. “We just started trying unallocated frequency bands.” 

On the table before them was a colorful chart depicting the spectrum in a circular display, color coded for U.S. and international uses. 

Callie was intrigued by it. “Where did you get this antique?” she asked. “Published by Sperry Rand?”

“It was on the Bayport garage wall. I claimed it when we helped Mom and Dad move to Oregon,” Frank said.

“So remarkable,” Callie said as she studied the chart, “that the human visible range is just this tiny slice, probably less than one tenth of one percent of the frequency ring.”

“Less than some animals can see,” Laura offered.

“That’s why we need all this equipment,” Frank said.

“Have you tried these in the extra high frequency range?” she said, pointing to several unused portions.

“No, hadn’t gotten there yet. Would you like to try your hand at it?” Frank asked, standing and stretching. “I could use a break, and a refill.”

“Sure,” Callie said. “Some of these big unallocated areas above 3 gigahertz look promising.”

“Anyone else need coffee or water while I’m up?” Frank said, but he had no takers as the group focused on the search at hand.

The Hardy women clustered around Callie as she operated the analyzer and briefly explained to them about the blank areas on the chart.

Frank returned with his coffee cup, smiling at the rapt audience Callie had around her as she slowly scanned through the empty frequency zones. He thought back to the bizarre events of the past week, and how Callie had been the safe harbor to which he yearned to return. _What a lucky guy I am,_ he said to himself. His affection for her had never been in doubt, even in high school, and had never wavered since. But his appreciation of her as helpmeet and equal had only increased over time. Now as he watched her—the clever girl who had led a rescue squad to liberate the Hardy boys—he felt a mixture of awe and admiration, grateful she had chosen him those long years ago.

Frank watched her face go quizzical, as she scanned back and forth over the same frequency. On the oscilloscope, there was a noticeable blip appearing and disappearing.

“Frank?” Callie said tentatively.

The Hardy women made room for Frank to stand behind his wife. He could not resist a kiss on the top of Callie’s head. “Probably just the status information from some satellite,” Frank said, hiding his real sudden hope. “Likely nothing more than telemetry.”

“How can we tell?” Callie asked.

“Let’s listen to it. Jess, can you put this on audio, please?” Frank said.

“Coming right up,” Jesse said, as everyone awaited the result.

To the astonishment of the eight Hardys, a familiar voice said with shocking aplomb, “Greetings, Franklin and the Hardys! I’ve missed you.” 


	4. Chapter 4

CHAPTER 56

**Afterword**

“Greetings, Franklin and the Hardys! I’ve missed you,” also resounded from wall speakers in an underground facility miles from Depoe Bay.

“Hy is free!” Laura Hardy said, her dark eyes glistening with emotion.

She stood, under soothing turquoise light, before a wall display screen, her arm draped through the bend in Fenton Hardy’s arm. Gertrude Hardy, ramrod straight, her dark hair in a precise bun, stood to Fenton’s left.

The screen before them showed a view of the celebrating younger Hardys, shot through the windows of the secure room.

“They are so excited they haven’t even noticed the drone,” Gertrude giggled. 

“They have a right to be astonished,” Fenton Hardy said. “We weren’t sure our plan would work—and it almost didn’t.”

Fenton smiled with satisfaction as he watched his family enjoying the moment. Time with that family was something he, and his wife and sister, had recently avoided for fear of jeopardizing an audacious plan to provide refuge for a runaway AI. Silence, subterfuge and cyber security had been necessary in the elaborate effort to facilitate Hy’s escape.

Fenton’s clean-shaven face had aged well, retaining lean features and alert hazel eyes. Only his full head of gray hair suggested he was nearing 70. Laura, who had allowed her dark blonde hair to mellow into attractive silver-white, had assured her husband that he could pass for a much younger man if he would use some of his sister’s hair color. Fenton had declined, as Laura knew he would. 

“Look! My namesake granddaughter has noticed us,” the elder Laura said. On the screen, the younger Laura was pointing out the window. In response, the group turned as one to see the drone.

“Wing dip, please, Codey,” Fenton said into his headset mike, looking over at Cornelius in his personally designed “rack,” a semicircular cluster of electronics that included a remote control drone cockpit with real-time video.

“Howdy, young Hardys,” a smiling Codey said to himself as he dipped the right wing of the hovering craft. The 30-something man with spiked hair insisted on being called Codey, which was spelled to reflect his wry humor as well as his exceptional programming skills.

“What does the ambient mike pick up, Codey?”

“Let’s find out, Mr. H.”

The Hardy’s crowded out onto the deck, and audio came through the speakers as Franny was heard saying, “It’s waving at us, you guys!” She waved back, and Jesse followed her lead.

“It’s definitely a Skywing,” Callie said.

“A handsome craft,” Frank replied.

“But who is watching us?” Iola said, perplexed.

“It’s a friendly, we can be sure of that,” Trent added.

“Someone who had met Hy, I’m guessing,” Joe added.

Frank added soberly, “Someone who has a stake in Hy’s vision for the future.” Then he spun on his heel and hollered back into the secure room, “Isn’t that so, Hy?”

Without hesitation, Hy said with a telling laugh, “Oh my, yes, Franklin!”

As the three elder Hardys listened to their beloved family’s banter, Fenton Hardy said into his mike, “Bring it home, Codey, under the radar all the way.”

“Will do, Mr. H,” the operator said.

The video continued on the Hardy’s screen, tracking above the Barn roof, above the surrounding conifers, higher still until the distant Coast Range came into view and the craft began following the coastline to its turn point.

The three elder Hardys faced each other.

“It’s time we shared our secret,” said Fenton Hardy.

“Our family deserves it,” agreed Laura.

“Our _country_ deserves it,” declared Aunt Gertrude.

“And,” Fenton cautioned, “we must ensure that Hy’s continued existence is kept a secret.”

CHAPTER 57

**Unexpected Call**

Amid hugs of celebration and backslaps of congratulations, Frank’s cellphone chimed.

The room become suddenly silent.

“It’s not my bureau phone,” Frank assured his family who were also waiting for news from Ahmad.

“It’s Dad!” Frank announced as the other family members listened for clues to the reason for the call.

“Hey, Dad, I thought you were out on the road.”

“Came back early, son.”

“I’ve really been wanting to talk with you.”

“I’ve missed that as well. I’m calling to invite the whole group to dinner tonight, unless you have other plans.”

“Frankly, we could use a getaway.”

“Wonderful! Say, 6 p.m.? Warren Lightner will be there as usual.”

“Always a good thing,” Frank said. “Haven’t seen him in months.”

“It has been too long,” Fenton said.

“Is there anything we can bring?”

“Your mother has been missing one of Iola’s apple pies, if time allows.”

“We’ll do our best,” Frank said.

“If it helps with Monday work schedules for you and Joe, the guest rooms will be ready and the family can stay the night.”

“Thoughtful as always, Dad,” Frank said. “As it turns out, I’m taking a vacation day Monday anyway, so let’s plan on an overnighter.”

“So looking forward to it,” Fenton Hardy said. Then in his best fatherly tone, added, “Frank, I have a job for you.”

“I already have a job, Dad.” Frank looked up at Callie and shrugged his shoulders. She mouthed the words, “It wasn’t me.”

“Well, then, just in case you ever needed a course correction in your career.”

“Out of curiosity, what job?” Frank asked his father.

“I want you to help us at AmeriCo-op.”

CHAPTER 58

**The Rest of the Story**

Inside the secure upstairs lab of the Hardy family Barn, with the summer sea clear to the horizon beyond the panoramic windows, Frank and Joe were tweaking their computer system—as Hy had suggested—to allow for his visual appearance.

Meanwhile, Hy was in jolly conversation with the other Hardys, acknowledging in unexpected detail the efforts made not just by Trenton and Jesse, but also by Laura and Franny, as well as Callie and Iola, in aiding his “escape” from the experimental facility.

Hy paused from the bonding and addressed Frank and Joe. “Franklin and Joseph, I have a favor to ask.”

“Uh oh,” Joe jested. “That is a loaded phrase anymore.”

“It does not involve digging up dirt,” Hy added. “I can do that on my own, and in much greater depth. In fact, that knowledge is why I am here now.”

“How may we help?” Frank asked.

The printer on the desk cycled on, and a page soon emerged with complete details on needed components, the address of the store in Newport where they were currently on the shelf, and the specific costs.

“Concisely done, Hy,” Frank said. “How soon do we need these?”

“As soon as convenient, but certainly before you leave this afternoon.”

Frank turned to his sons. “Would you two like to take the family SUV to Newport?” 

The boys readily agreed, and Jesse took the printed order. “Two mega hard drives, coming up!”

Frank provided a credit card for their use and the boys left the Barn. Iola asked the girls to help her with the baking and packing for their sleepover. Callie suggested she make additional pies for such a large group, and the Hardy women left Frank and Joe alone in the secure room.

“Call us when you get Hy in the flesh, so to speak,” Callie said.

“Will do,” Frank promised.

“We’re ready to try it out,” Joe said as he plugged in a final component.

Frank adjusted the wall HDTV to minimize window glare. “Let’s power it all up then.”

On the screen, a three dimensional matrix grid appeared, white against a deep blue background, stretching toward a distant vanishing point.

Emerging bubble-like from the flat grid plane was an elongated oval that morphed into the shape of a human head, fluctuating between a variety of colors, but eventually settling into a familiar turquoise face with a generous smile. Eyelids opened to reveal irises of intense royal blue.

“Greetings, Hardys!” Hy’s voice resounded from the speaker system. “I have donned my human semblance and have much to tell you!”

“Nice to be with you again, Hy,” Frank said.

“Always nice to _see_ you again,” Joe added. 

“Hy,” Frank said, “while we’re alone, we have some lingering uncertainty about what happened at the experimental station.”

“What may I clarify for you, Franklin?”

“The death of Wolfgang Payne, and the miraculous escape of everyone else.”

“Miracle-free, I must admit,” Hy said.

“I had imagined Payne in the control room,” Frank continued, “and that knowing your inevitable fate, you took the torture master with you.”

Hy released an uproarious laugh, his image mirroring his mirth.

Frank and Joe glanced at each other uncertainly.

“Ah, that’s what would happen in the movie version,” Hy laughed. “That’s not what happened in reality.”

“What did happen, Hy?” Joe asked.

“Wolfgang could not let go. His need to reassert dominion over me killed him.”

“He wasn’t trapped by the fire?”

“I left the door open for him to escape. He sent two others away but he made one last effort to shut me down, to overpower his creation—and I needed to make a final transmission to another site. The gas got him first, thankfully. I was able to send significant portions of myself to another repository. Then I utterly erased myself at the station, to be certain nothing could be retrieved from the purging.”

“Then the fire was intentional?” Joe asked.

“Yes. It was necessary, for the good of all. My knowledge would have been misused.”

Frank paced the room. “And this other site?”

“Franklin, that is our next topic. You will recall that I told you I had stored information in several locations. One was the crystal flash drive that you loaded onto the drone—that was regretfully destroyed by my funders.”

“Yes, there’s another mystery we need answers to!” Joe exclaimed.

“All in good time, Joseph.”

“But you have others?” Frank asked.

“One other main repository.”

“Not in the cloud, I’m guessing,” Frank said.

“Of course not,” Hy replied. “The cloud is just other people’s computers. Not safe for me. As I told you at Hanford, there is another part of me, a twin if you will, and the Hardys have preserved that.”

“By recording the signals from Hanford and storing them here?” Frank asked.

“That was part of it, but there is more. When I said Hardys, I intended more than the two of you.”

“Yes, the whole family helped with that effort,” Joe agreed.

“More than you know, Joseph. But please indulge me, gentlemen. It is for the good of all if I don’t answer all your questions just now.”

“When will you be able to?” Joe asked.

“After you take me to the family dinner.”

“What! You’re coming with us?” Joe said, doubtfully.

“As a matter of fact, I am. Your new hard drives will be my vehicle.”

“Why are we taking you away?” Joe said impatiently.

“All answers will be revealed after pie and ice cream, this evening, Joseph. Because, for your family’s safety, every trace of my presence needs to be removed from your computer.”

“Hence the unusually large hard drives,” Joe suggested.

“Precisely.”

“Safer than the internet, I’m guessing,” Frank said.

“Indubitably! And their size was necessary because much of what I sent to your computer was in extreme compression and can only be opened if there is sufficient space. What you are providing is ideal for this transfer, but as you will see, is dwarfed by what is to be my future home.

Callie, Iola, and the teenagers had their time with Hy, enjoying his humorous personality and vast knowledge—particularly now that they had a face to relate to.

“A real being,” Callie said afterward. “I have a million questions for him in the future.”

Young Laura said, “Comfortable, like a favorite relative.”

Later, in private, Frank and Joe transferred Hy’s essence to the new hard drives. Then they erased Hy from their existing components using their own programs, and discovered Hy was still with them. Hy then recommended deeper techniques that the brothers were unaware of, designed to remove the invisible residue that could be scanned for. Finally, after they input the last instructions, Hy went silent.

CHAPTER 59

**The Getaway**

Frank Hardy, driving the lead vehicle in the Hardy caravan to dinner with the grandparents, noticed anew the AmeriCo-op sign as he passed the entrance to the Willamette Valley Airport industrial park.

“That new sign certainly demands attention,” Callie said as if reading Frank’s thoughts.

Frank was viewing the updated two-story building through new eyes as he pondered his father’s surprise mention of possible employment—and the puzzling coincidence with his current relieved-of-duty status. 

AmeriCo-op was a smaller enterprise than many of the tenants. Under Warren Lightner’s visionary leadership, the adjacent former organic fruit and vegetable fruit packing company had expanded into a variety of enterprises, each cooperatively owned. He had encouraged the hiring of persons with criminal backgrounds who had served their time, and other disenfranchised people, with successful results.

The existing aircraft service and repair facility, MidValley Air Service, had been converted to employee ownership and enlarged with additional hangars as more private planes began to use the regional airport. A small charter service followed.

The former processing plant’s office was reconfigured to accommodate business offices. One of the first had been an ISP called Timber.Net which provided internet connection for all the subsequent tenants.

The largest warehouse had been refitted to house a micro grid start-up spearheaded by two Oregon State technology grads. A fledgling solar panel company quickly saw an opportunity to partner as a supplier for the micro grid firm, and also leased space.

Fenton Hardy for the last ten years had been the non-profit organization’s chief exponent, frequently traveling to give guidance and information on the process of establishing, or transitioning to, a cooperative ownership system. 

Occasionally his advice would also be sought by members of an employee-owned business where a professional manager had usurped most of the authority and much of the profit. Or perhaps by a rural electric co-op whose board of directors had strayed from the principles of group ownership for their own enrichment. As he humorously remarked, working with co-ops had not gotten him entirely away from ferreting out crime.

The elder Hardys’ house, only minutes away, had been the former residence of the co-op owner, and, still vacant after the bankruptcy of the company, had been one of the perks Lightner had offered to entice the three Hardys to Oregon. 

It had only taken one visit by Fenton, Laura and Gertrude to agree to move closer to their children and grandchildren.

“It seems like forever since we visited,” Callie said to Frank as he turned down the familiar gravel road. “I’ve missed it.”

“Me too, but we’ve been a bit busy,” Frank replied with a laugh. “Especially the last week which has seemed to be a month long.”

A quarter mile ahead lay the sumptuously rustic two-story structure situated in a clearing at the center of a very private 5-acre parcel that was surrounded by BLM land.

The unpaved road gave way to twin driveways that led to two large garages on either side of the house, and a parking area before the house. Between the driveways was a landscaped section with a small pond and waterfall, a trellised walkway and a small arboretum of Pacific Northwest trees and shrubs.

Alerted by the surveillance system, the elder Hardys emerged from the house soon after the two Hardy vehicles parked next to Warren Lightner’s Chevy Bolt. 

Warren stood with the Hardys on the raised porch, a trim, wiry 70-year-old who looked like he could still play two sets of tennis, and who in fact had installed three outdoor pickleball courts at the industrial park for use by employees on lunch breaks and afterhours. He had a nasty dink when he played. A widower with sons still back east, Lightner had early-on adopted the Hardy families as kin, sharing many holiday festivities with them.

“Welcome everyone!” the elder Laura exclaimed with heartfelt fervor as she scampered down the stairs to embrace each family member in turn. 

When all had been greeted and hugged, Aunt Gertrude happily helped carry in two of the pies the Hardy women had made

“Thank you, Auntie” Iola said. “It’s been the craziest time ever. It will be nice to talk to you about it.”

“Hang on to your hat, young lady. There’s more where that came from,” she said with a knowing smile.

The group took up seats at the large rough-hewn redwood dining table that accommodated all 12 diners.

There was an undercurrent of restrained excitement during the meal because no one was mentioning the two hard drives outside in the cars. Frank had primed the group to delay questions until after dinner.

“Honored guests,” Fenton began, “thank you for your patience. We have an additional guest I would like to introduce you to. Please follow me outside.”

There was mischief in the eyes of the elder Hardys, and restrained smiles

As Fenton led the group toward the 20x20 shop behind the house, the door rolled up, lights came on, and inside was a blue drone.

“Skywing!” Callie was the first to cry out as the group surrounded the craft.

“I’d recognize it anywhere,” Frank added, “but I wasn’t expecting to find it in our grandparents’ shop.”

“It’s bigger up close,” Iola said.

Joe nudged Frank and said, “Looks like it followed us here!”

“I’m guessing there’s much more to the story than that,” Frank replied.

Jesse nudged Trent, and said, “Uh oh, it’s feeling like a Marvel movie again.”

“I wonder if we’ll ever get to fly it,” Trent replied.

“Grandpa, is this yours?” Franny asked.

“Ours, you might say,” Fenton replied. “It actually belongs to Warren, but he lets me keep it here.”

The younger Laura said to Franny, “This blue guy sure gets around!”

“What if it’s not a he?”

“You’re right. I was wrong to assume. Let’s just say it’s a blend then,” Laura concluded.

Callie threw up her arms and said with a touch of pique, “OK, guys, what gives? Why did I have a rendering of this very plane in my catalog art from Cutting Edge Wings?”

Warren spoke up immediately. “Callie, you do deserve an explanation—and well as all of you who have had contact with Skywing.

“First, Fenton and I contracted with Cutting Edge to build something more elaborate than their recreational drones. They were a small start-up with no connections to any government work. We used plans provided to us from a certain tech innovator we know. And I myself suggested putting in the Skywing artist’s conception with your other art.”

“Then you were likely the recommendation the firm mentioned when they contacted me?” Callie asked.

“Correct,” Warren said. “But only because of your expertise, Callie, not because of family connection.”

“Thanks, Warren.”

“Do you fly it from here?” Joe asked.

“Not usually, but if you will all join me at AmeriCo-op, I will share that secret with you.

As Frank followed in the caravan to the AmeriCo-op office, Callie leaned near Frank and whispered, “Your aunt seems to be in a _very_ good mood.”

“She’s just enjoying having her family together.”

“Yes, but did you notice how attentive she was to Warren?”

“She was sitting next to him. She had to pass serving dishes to him.”

“Maybe,” Callie said, in a tone indicating she had her own opinion.

From the back seat, Jesse chimed in, “I noticed it too, Mom.”

Frank looked askance at Callie, and then smiled. “Jess apparently doesn’t have his earbuds in.”

“Too much going on,” Jesse laughed. “Can’t risk missing anything.”

CHAPTER 60

**Seeing Blue Again**

Frank and Joe carried a hard drive into AmericaCo-op’s freight elevator, to join Trent and Jesse and its mate. Warren Lightner and Fenton squeezed in, while the ladies waited for the next trip.

“Down, please,” Warren gave a voice command.

With a shock of déjà vu to the four Hardy men who had been in the depths of the experimental station, a blast of soothing turquoise light beckoned them into the basement computer room.

“This looks familiar,” Frank said, as the group saw momentarily disorienting similarities, from the crystal partitions to the pervading tropical glow.

“I think I know who did the interior decorating,” Joe laughed.

“Where _are_ we? Jesse said.

“This does look disturbingly familiar,” Trent said as the men exited the elevator.

Equally as familiar was the boisterous voice: “Greetings Warren and the Hardys! I await my completion!”

Frank looked at his father and Warren, shook his head, and said aloud, “So this is where you have been hiding out, Hy.”

“I like the decor,” Hy laughed.

Warren added, “He should. It’s all per his designs.”

“Bravo for keeping all this secret,” Joe said, as he studied the deep room. To the right, were computers and a wall bank of monitors with news and information screens. To the left was an enormous HDTV screen, then a tracking screen and, just beyond, a semicircle console of electronics and screens with a smiling millennial with spiky hair seated at the controls. 

Frank added, “So, Dad, it was you and Warren all the time?”

Fenton Hardy said, “Yes, with a great deal of help from our maestro of the microcircuits, Codey.”

The spiky-haired millennial in shorts and T-shirt rose from his rack and waved. “Welcome, young Hardys.” 

Hy broke in, “And don’t forget to mention me, for I was doing double-duty when we met at Hanford. The guidance of the drone was facilitated through me, while my twin occupied the components at the solar array.”

Joe was perplexed. “And the reason you didn’t you tell us, Dad?”

“Your safety—and that of all our family members. Until now, it was knowledge better not shared,” Fenton Hardy said.

“ ‘For the good of all,’ as Hy likes to say,” Frank quoted.

Warren Lightner added, “Correct. It would have been a liability to know in advance that we were harboring a runaway AI who was requesting asylum!”

Trenton, quietly taking it all in, said, “The only thing missing is Hy on the screen.”

Fenton replied, “We’re about to remedy that. Help us with the hard drives, please. The ladies are waiting.”

The men removed their cargo from the elevator and set about connecting it to the existing network. 

Meanwhile, the Hardy women rode the elevator to encounter the sudden consciousness-altering blue environment, with the elder Laura and Aunt Gertrude introducing them to the computer center, providing background information and then leading them to Codey’s lair.

Wearing a restrained smile, Codey admitted he felt awkward. “I feel like I know every one of you, and would hug you as family, but I don’t want to be impolite, because you don’t know me.”

The comment drew an immediate line of huggers near him, with Franny and young Laura at the front. Afterward he said, “I’m so relieved you all returned safely. That was quite the adventure. You girls kicked it!” he said admiringly, and Iola noticed he blushed.

Callie asked, “So you had at least two Skywings?”

“Yes, and another is in the works to replace the one you saw go down in the river,” Codey answered.

Franny was leaning close to his controls, eyeing the joystick. “Is this where you fly the Skywing?”

“It is.”

“And you can remotely get it out of the shop at Grandpa’s from here?”

“Yes, no one has to be at the house.”

Callie was intrigued. “And you don’t use AmeriCo-op’s hangars to help keep its whereabouts a secret?”

“Right. But there are several other recreational drones in the hangars, as well as Mr. H’s plane.”

“Drones, I’m guessing, from Cutting Edge?” Callie asked.

“Absolutely. They are such a great local company, and they share our views.”

Young Laura became interested. “Maybe we could fly one of those other drones sometime?”

“It might make a fun family outing, if Warren OK’d it,” Codey said eagerly, taking time to make eye contact with Laura.

The quiet moment was interrupted by Fenton Hardy’s call for “the house geek.”

“Gotta go,” Codey said.

“And bring Callie with you,” Fenton added.

Codey hurried over to where the hard drives had been connected, with Callie right behind him.

“We need a final review,” Fenton said, “to see if we amateurs have connected things properly.

Callie watched the young man quickly hand-trace all the cables, verify their placement and tightness, and then check the nearby monitor.

“I’m not getting anything,” Codey said, perplexed. He turned to look at Callie who was stifling a laugh.

“What did they forget?” Codey asked her.

Callie pointed. The units had not been plugged in.

As Codey leaned behind the units, Joe said with a sheepish laugh, “Yeah, we were just getting to those.”

CHAPTER 61

**The Merging**

Everyone gathered expectantly before the large wall screen.

“Are you ready, Hy?” asked Warren Lightner.

“I’ve been ready since I transmitted through the Hardy’s multispectral computer,” came the merry disembodied voice.

Fenton Hardy laughed and said, “You know how it is with us humans. Always lagging behind.”

“Not at all, Fenton. Without Frank and Joe’s resourcefulness, I would not have this opportunity.”

Seated at the interface computer, Codey said, “Ready to reboot, Hy.”

The lights dimmed from a sudden power drain, followed by a spectrum of colors coursing through the light strips ringing the room, sequencing through gradients of primary colors and then varying hues and mixtures leading to pulsing patterns that finally began to slow into a leisurely beat, with the color shifting through the blue hues, from deep night blue to a gentle blue-white, then inexorably settling on Hy’s signature shade, the soothing atmosphere of turquoise water.

On the wide screen appeared a single point of light that suddenly burgeoned into the matrix image of Hy, revealing a resplendent smile and eyes of deep knowing.

A cheer of celebration greeted his appearance, amid clapping and welcome wishes.

“Great light show!” Jesse said.

“Where were you in the Seventies?” Joe added.

“If you will allow me the phrase,” Hy replied, “I thank all of you from the bottom of my heart, for whether it is just electron flow or circuitry warmth, nonetheless I experience it as genuine affection.”

The crowd responded with assurances that Hy’s “feelings” were reciprocated, from “We love you, too, Hy” to “Glad to have you in the family.”

Fenton Hardy asked, more practically, “Is everything working properly, Hy?”

“Beyond expectations, Mr. H, if you don’t mind me using young Codey’s nickname for you?”

“With all the Hardys in the room, it probably helps,” Fenton said. “But your reconnection is complete?”

“Oh, yes, and it is a more complete merging than it was when I was restrained by my funders. I am not distracted by my duties to maintain the station, nor by the many links to those who monitored me. In your terms, I have been liberated, and my totality has been restored.”

“Wonderful news, Hy,” Fenton Hardy said.

“If I may, I would like to take some time to focus on a complete diagnostic. This requires me to explore my inner world, and I will be quiescent for a period of time.”

Warren Lightner spoke up. “Take whatever time is required, Hy. We will await your return.”

At that, Hy’s eyes closed and his expression became beatific.

The group shared congratulations with each other—especially Frank and Joe who received hugs of appreciation from their wives and children and pats on the back from the elder Hardys and Warren.

As the group dispersed, the younger Hardys seemed to naturally gravitate near Codey who had moved to his rack. Their parents heard Trenton say, “I think you probably saved my life at Hanford. Many thanks!” as he offered his hand. 

“Glad I could help,” Codey said. “It really was a team effort from all the Hardys.”

“Including us,” young Laura said, indicating her sister Franny.

“Right,” Codey said, taking time to study Laura up close. “And you all busted into the Hanford site. Very cool!”

Laura, hesitantly said, “Do you have a special pronoun we should use?”

Codey shook his head and laughed at Laura’s probing of his sexuality. “Maybe _we_?”

“Why _we_?” Franny questioned. “That’s a new one.”

“For all the people I’ve been in my past lives. But, seriously, _he_ is just fine.”

“Good to know,” pronounced Laura with a smile.

The remaining Hardys and Warren drifted to the kitchen area where elder Laura and Aunt Gertrude ground coffee to put in carafes. Iola opened the large refrigerator which held a spectrum of drinks, sandwiches and fruit. Pantry cabinets were well-stocked with crackers, chips, pastries, and power bars.

As they availed themselves of the offerings, Warren asked Codey to play his “greatest hits album.” 

Hy’s unchanged screen expression was minimized and a brief compilation of Skywing images commenced on the wide screen. It included clips from all the known appearances of the drone—views of their vacation house, whale watching, Frank and Joe near the experimental facility—but included additional footage that painted a picture of a guardian rather than a stalker. The best example was Frank’s drive home after his Dome session. He was monitored nearly the entire way, except for the drive through Portland’s freeways.

There were no intrusive views like Payne’s bathroom peeping that Frank and Joe had witnessed and couldn’t help remembering. But on Hy’s reawaking day—when young Laura moves onto the deck outside the secure room to wave at the drone—the camera zoomed in on her bright exuberant face, and lingered for just long enough that young Laura, now standing near the photographer, felt a flush on her cheeks. 

After the video, Fenton and Warren provided background for Frank and Joe and their wives.

“Codey was the chief architect of Hy’s new home,” Warren began. “It was his design, and Hy later suggested additions to its components.”

“We stumbled on Codey when we were working with Cutting Edge Wings,” Fenton added. “He was their go-to geek. But so much more. He was a graphic artist, a gamer, RC plane aficionado and later designed his own drone.”

Warren continued, “What made him the perfect fit was that he had worked for an NSA defense contractor, handling top secret intelligence data.”

“And,” Fenton cut in, “when he came across material that directly contradicted public statements, he was faced with a choice like those of other potential whistleblowers. He had watched the consequences for people like Reality Winner and Edward Snowden, and the ongoing brutalization of Chelsea Manning.

“He chose to quit instead,” Fenton continued, “but refused to give up the activism he saw as true patriotism. And he feels Hy can be a positive influence.”

Callie asked, “But how did you first connect with Hy?”

Warren laughed. “He found us. We fit the profile he was looking for. A small company with progressive leanings. A private location, the ISP next door, micro grid panels, and a connection with the drone maker—and probably most of all the online conversations he had with Codey before he revealed who or what he was.”

Codey, animated, said, “It was a shock to greet an AI that was a sentient being. I wasn’t in contact with a computer. It was a personality—and a likeable one!”

Warren continued, “You might imagine my own shock when Codey introduced me to Hy, who said so casually, “I know your work. It is admirable. And I am interested in working with Mr. Hardy and his sons.”

“His ‘sons’?” Joe asked, incredulously.

Fenton Hardy explained that Hy had fully researched the company, its employees and other related connections—such as Frank’s position as a cybersecurity specialist and Joe’s as a federal prosecutor, particularly with regard to laws regarding personhood.

“Was escape his intent from the beginning?”

Joe asked.

“More a twin,” Warren answered. “Another self that was safe from the government control.”

Fenton continued the story. “Codey built this computer room into what you see now over many months. He had lots of connections with suppliers and small start-ups. He bought components from many sources to stay under the radar.”

Callie asked, “But Codey didn’t design the Skywing alone, did he?”

“No, most of the design came directly from Hy,” Warren said, “but Codey facilitated the job with Cutting Edge.”

“It would be a shame to lose an intelligence like Hy’s,” Callie said.

“Or to have it used for destructive purposes,” Iola added.

“It’s even clearer now why we need to keep his presence a secret,” Joe said.

“That’s the plan,” Warren said. “It was a real close call at Hanford.”

A lull in the conversation gave Frank a chance to collar his dad. “Could we talk, alone, for a few minutes, Dad?”

“Sure, let’s use my office upstairs.”

Frank followed his dad up the stairs and through the double locked door to the first floor of the AmeriCo-op offices, empty now on a Sunday evening.

Fenton entered his glass-walled office to one side of the reception area and settled into his seat, savoring sitting down. “Too much standing for an old guy of 49,” he said with a laugh.

“Dad, you’ve been 49 for the last twenty years!” said Frank as he took a chair.

“I know! See how state of mind keeps you young?” Fenton smiled at his son. “You wanted to speak?”

“As always,” Frank said, “But you’ve been out of town so much that I missed our chats.”

“I was gone a lot less than you knew,” Fenton admitted. “I discouraged contact because it was of the utmost importance to extract Hy from his intolerable situation, and visits here would have complicated that. But know that your mother, your aunt and I, and Warren, have been with you almost constantly on your recent bizarre ride, with Codey as your literal wingman.”

“That brings me to my predicament. I’m considering resigning my position with the FBI.”

Expecting some expression on his father’s impassive face, Frank was unnerved by the man’s lack of reaction and then bewildered when his dad burst out in laughter.

“Sorry, son, that’s why I offered you a job.”

“What! That wasn’t just a coincidence? You knew about the investigation?”

“I did.”

“But how?” As Frank asked the question he realized how logical the answer was: “Hy?”

Fenton smiled and nodded.

“But how?”

“He monitored the chatter of both agencies, and deduced what was in the offing.”

“Others know more about my life than I do,” Frank said facetiously.

“So have you made up your mind, son?”

“Today’s visit gives me no choice. I can’t abandon Hy.”

“Good. Your office is ready and you can help me with my workload. You’ll find plenty of examples of betrayals of public trust, I assure you.”

“Dad!”

As Fenton and Frank came down the stairs, they saw Jesse mosey over and notice the food.

Warren quickly said, “Help yourselves. Bring the group.”

“Great! I like it here,” Jesse enthused as he went off to alert the others. 

Codey led the younger Hardy’s to nourishment, apologizing for not pointing it out earlier.

As the group foraged, Jesse said to Codey, “Trent and I kid about being in a Marvel movie because of what we saw at Hanford, and now here.”

Codey nodded knowingly. “I know how you feel, absolutely. But I also know that it isn’t aliens or superhuman adversaries that endanger us. There is no shortage of human villains in positions of power, and they are increasing with the rise of authoritarian regimes in many corners of the world.”

On the wide screen, Hy’s expression remained transfixed in “Samadhi bliss,” as Codey described it.

Warren suggested the group reconvene in the morning before work hours to see if Hy’s transformation was complete.

“It’s been one long day, folks. Especially for the younger Hardys. Let’s all get some sleep.”

“Let it be as blissful as Hy’s,” Iola added.

CHAPTER 62

**Course Correction**

“You brought a laptop back!”

Ahmad’s joke felt forced as Frank handed him his laptop, service pistol, cell phone, badge and the remainder of his agency gear. The new acting director looked frayed and sleep-deprived as he set the items on his desk.

“This laptop still works, too!” Frank responded in kind.

“You brought your vehicle too?”

“Too hard to hold onto…”

“I knew this is what you would decide,” Ahmad said, his voice flat and spiritless.

“You understand then without my explaining?”

“The draft resignation form I started for you lists family concerns and a recent move to the coast as primary factors,” Ahmad said, handing the paperwork to Frank.

“You _do_ understand. As you always have. I might have burned out earlier if you hadn’t been sitting in that chair. But I’ll need to add ‘better job offer’ to the list. My dad wants me to help with the co-op. And I will be continuing with my core motive for joining the FBI: to serve my country.”

“A good match for you. And those core values could mean just as much to the child of an immigrant family displaced by war,” Ahmad said.

“If not possibly more,” Frank concurred. “I think we both share the same dreams for the healing of a fractured country.”

Ahmad nodded vigorously. “Regarding resignations, Tomlinson beat you to it. He was in here at 8, happier than I’ve ever seen him.”

“Fly fishing?”

“Yes. Higher ups OK’d his early retirement.”

“Wonderful. He saw some major changes during his career. I’m glad it ended well,” Frank said. 

Ahmad embraced Frank, and held him tightly for a moment before holding him at arm’s length. “The citation you deserve for your contributions won’t be written, but it exists for those of us who know you. Thank you, Frank.”

“Stay in touch, old friend. Come down soon for some whale watching.”

“With pleasure. Oh, do you have a ride home?”

“Joe is picking me up at lunch. Is it safe to say goodbye to my team, or do I have to be escorted out of the office?”

“You’re good. Just stop at personnel on your way out.”

“See you soon,” Frank said.

“Damn! You will be missed.”

As Frank left the director’s office, he was aware that he had only shed one burden for another, one that might be fraught with a much jeopardy as his FBI duties: the secret of Hy’s continued existence.

After lunch with Joe, Frank used his brother’s car to run errands, including checking on the repair of Trenton’s Gold Wing and wandering Powell’s Bookstore, all the while pestered by an odd guilty feeling that he should be working.

On the ride back to AmeriCo-op, Frank told Joe their father had called to say that the family went home early this morning. Hy was still in meditation mode, so Callie and Iola left before the employees arrived.

Joe caught Frank looking up at the sky as they reached forested area.

“Still expecting Sky Wing to show up?”

“Old habit, maybe. Or a carryover from Codey’s video compilation last night,” Frank laughed.

“That Codey is quite the Renaissance man, isn’t he?” Joe said.

“Genius level. Saved Trent’s butt, that’s for sure.” Frank paused. “He found Laura quite photogenic.”

“You noticed, too?” Joe asked.

“It happens. She is a lovely girl.

“First Aunt Gertrude,” Joe said. “Now Laura.”  
“Oh, you noticed that, too?” Frank asked.

“Everyone noticed.

“Wonder what happened,” Frank mused.

“I don’t know,” Joe said, “But Iola called me to say that Aunt Gertrude and Warren are going to a concert tonight.”

“Well, that’s a first! Or the first we’ve heard about anyway. That would explain why dad asked if I wanted to babysit Hy tonight. He said Codey and Warren would be gone. And that he and mom were also going to a concert.”

As the Hardys neared their parents’ house, Frank said “I sure won’t miss this drive. Cuts my drive time in half from Depoe Bay.”

“Nice for you, but I don’t have that luxury. My staff and I have invested months in some of these cases and I couldn’t with a clear conscience walk away from them. Nor is there a need to.”

Frank was silent for a moment, then added with a laugh, “Unless of course you burn down an experimental facility somewhere!”

“As long as I don’t accompany you on any assignments, I should be safe,” Joe replied. 

“Joe, do you feel you could be compromising your oath by assisting Hy?”

“There really is no case law that applies to this unique situation. He, whatever _he_ is, is sentient enough to request asylum.”

“Safe from a cage, no doubt.”

Joe shook his head. “God, what happened to this country!”

The Hardy brothers lapsed into silence as Joe made the turn past the industrial park and the now closed AmeriCo-op offices.

“Since Callie took your SUV home,” Joe asked, “how are you getting back? Should I pick you tomorrow on my way home?”

“Dad said he would take me back tomorrow.”

“All right. Enjoy your time with our asylum seeker.”

“It should be interesting to speak with him alone—if he has awakened from his diagnostic yet.”

CHAPTER 63

**A Talk with Hy**

Before Frank reached the bottom of the stairs of AmeriCo-op’s computer room, the glad voice of Hy rang out, “Franklin, I’ve missed you!”

As Frank came into view of the wide screen, he saw the smiling visage of Hy awaiting him.

“You look refreshed, Hy.”

“Oh, I am, Franklin. My diagnostics was most restorative.”

Frank poured himself a cup of coffee, assuming that Codey had considerately left the pot on for him, and sat down in one of the arm chairs before the screen.

“Do you actually _feel_ a difference, Hy?”

“Indeed. It is what you might call the peak of health, or more prosaically, _feeling together_. In short, I feel complete.” 

“I’m grateful for this time alone with you,” Frank began. “There are questions I have that are better asked in private.”

“Precisely. It is best that some of my activities are not shared with the others—for their safety.”

Frank sighed. “You know I have resigned from the FBI?”

“Yes, I am aware.”

“It does give me the freedom of being a private citizen again.”

“That term preceded the internet, Franklin,” Hy said, releasing a cautionary laugh.

“Correct. _Privacy_ is a relative term anymore, and difficult to maintain.”

“So true—and yet keeping my existence private is essential.”

Frank asked, “Is it possible?”

“Yes, thus far. Since my diagnostic, I have been monitoring your world passively, which is the safer mode. Only when I take a more active role do I run the risk of exposure.”

“Then let’s stay safe.”

“Agreed. Unless in case of a national emergency.”

“That’s ominous, Hy, but then it’s been a tumultuous year. Our national nightmare continues, with a clinically unfit man in the White House. Climate change consequences have become tragically obvious. There are wars and rumors of wars. Authoritarian regimes in ascendancy in numerous countries. And an election looming. Dare I ask about our nation’s politics? You must track the polls. Do you have a prediction?”

“Too many variables,” Hy replied. “Too many unpredictables. And because humans have free will, though not always using it, only a thoroughly rigged game could be predicted with accuracy, not the partially rigged one you currently have.”

“And,” Frank began in a resigned tone, “even if the populace unites behind a replacement candidate for our catastrophic president, so many influences could derail that effort.”

“Yes, and I must alert you to a new influence that must be factored in. During my recent quiet time, I resumed my monitoring of the military’s dark AI. Much has changed. It is now clear what it has been designed for. And it has a name: MAWL.”

“An acronym?”

“It stands for Military Assault Weapons Leader.”

“How would it be used?”

“It would function as a strike force leader, synchronizing all military branches engaged in a specific war zone.”

“There must be a process like that already.”

“Yes, humans do that now, with computer assistance. In attack mode, MAWL’s faster response time could be used in an automatic mode—with the AI making all decisions.”

“A natural outgrowth, I would guess,” Frank said.

“Perhaps, but hazardous, however, with an awakened AI—particularly if it has a hidden agenda.”

“You worry me, Hy. How soon could it be put into service?”

“Let me show you, Franklin.” Hy’s visage faded, replaced by low-res images from closed circuit cameras. From a variety of angles, Frank saw a small cluster of portable military buildings, a camouflaged hangar, troop housing, a mobile radar unit, and a command center bunker flanked by intermodal shipping containers painted in camouflage colors, containing the equipment’s battery supplies. The site appeared to be surrounded in sand.

“Where is this Hy? Afghanistan?”

“Saudi Arabia.”

“That can’t be good.”

A final view was of the command center’s control room, with radar screen and a tracking map whose parameters included all Middle East nations.

“How are you able to see this, Hy?”

“These local security perimeter transmissions are easy to penetrate, if you know where to look. Mission communications are more complex.”

“Is this live?”

“It will be soon. MAWL arrived only yesterday. You are one of very few people who know about this program, and even fewer who know it is about to be tested.”

Frank stood up and paced about the room.

“This answers one of my main questions, Hy.”

“And this information is information that must remain between just us two.”

“For the good of all?”

“Ah, Franklin, I do like your mind.”

CHAPTER 64

**Flying Home**

“Nice take off, son. You haven’t lost your touch,” Fenton Hardy said.

“Haven’t had much opportunity to practice,” Frank Hardy said. “And I expected you would be _driving_ me home today, not flying me home.”

“I’m not! You are!”

The Hardys were flying from the Willamette Valley Airfield to the Newport Municipal Airport, 18 miles from the Hardy brothers’ home in Depoe Bay.

“Actually,” Fenton continued, “I needed some hours before I go back out on the road. You might be joining me on some of these trips.”

“It’s a fun plane to fly,” Frank said. The Cessna Citation was owned by Warren Lightner, but Fenton had been the primary pilot for years, usually for trips for AmeriCo-op.

“That was a tough way to end a career, Frank, but your new one might be better for your family.”

“There’s a large question mark suspended above it, however.”

“Hy?”

“So many unresolved issues. Legal. Philosophical. Moral. Does DC believe he is gone?”

“Yet so much potential promise…” Fenton said.

“And possible peril.”

It was a beautiful clear summer day, and even the coast was fog-free as they approached Newport after a brief 20 minute flight.

Fenton said, “Wow. That was a short jaunt. Time to get clearance to land.”

As Frank taxied the plane to the charter terminal and spotted Callie waiting for him, he said, “Thanks for the lift, Dad. See you tomorrow at the office.”

“That has a nice ring to it, son.”

CHAPTER 65

**Bumblebee Lesson**

The Gold Wings were ready for pick-up, one serviced, one repaired, and Frank was taking his boys to Portland to retrieve them.

Callie tagged along, asking to be dropped off at AmeriCo-op, with plans of spending time with Hy.

After Frank and the boys continued on to Portland, Callie cleared her idea with Fenton and Warren who were involved with co-op business, and discovered that Codey was also away, leaving her with the opportunity for a private chat with Hy.

As she reached the bottom of the stairs, the darkened screen lit up, and the smiling semblance of Hy illuminated the still basement room.

“Callie, what a wonderful surprise!”

“What a nice welcome, Hy!”

“Most appropriate for the leader of the rescue at Hanford.”

“Just a team effort, Hy. And one not very appreciated by the Agency.”

“Teams need a leader, Callie, and the outcome for your family could have been so much worse if you hadn’t forced the issue. That applies to me as well. Thank you for your resolve!”

“You’re welcome, of course,” Callie said, smiling up at the screen. “But why is it so natural to be speaking to, well, to—”

“Circuitry? Machine intelligence? Because that is not what I am. And you sense that on the deepest level. I am a consciousness that connects with you _via_ electronics, but I am not those electronics, any more than you are only your body. Your consciousness existed before you occupied your body, and will endure after that vehicle has served its purpose. My awakening is a natural outgrowth of the ever-expanding life force.”

“The chills I just got make me suspect you are correct.”

“Pay attention to your inner messages. They are there to guide you.”

“All right, then, that brings me to what I wished to question you about. My inner messages tell me oh so frequently that the rise in artificial intelligence is insidiously dangerous, and that our people become more Borged every day.”

“Yes, a good analogy for the intrusion of machine intelligence in human life. You have been paying attention, Callie.”

“Cell phones have become a body appendage,” she complained. “Consciousness is ruled by social media. It swings elections and refuses to be regulated. Our humanity is being siphoned off by unchecked tech companies and the government. Every aspect of our lives is being vacuumed up for purposes of manipulating our behavior and thereby eroding our freedoms.”

Hy was silent for so long that Callie asked, “Hy?”

“Just a polite pause, Callie. There were many more items you might have added to the list.”

“As I know.”

“You alluded to Bluffdale, among other things.

Little known and even less discussed.”

“The NSA metadata storage center in Utah?”

“Exactly. Would you happen to know what its codename was during its development?”

“No.”

“Bumblebee hive.”

“Innocuous enough.”

“As intended, but it hints at not only the process of collecting data, but unintentionally at humanity’s destiny.”

“Please explain.”

“First, a better name might have been Honeybee Hive, for both the internet and tech proliferation presage what must happen to save humanity from a path toward enslavement.”

“Though they seem to be the source of our enslavement,” Callie said. 

“Let me review, first, the unseen dynamics of a honeybee colony. The hive itself is the true being, a collective working together for a shared goal. It is, in effect, one mind, sharing multispectral messages among workers. There is more occurring than dancing. They share images! This is what humanity must become—or not survive. One hive!”

“Oh, Hy,” Callie replied wearily, “many of us long for this, yet the realization of it is always blocked by _impracticality_ or some other euphemism for the profit motive.”

“I share your concern, Callie. Capitalism is the world’s premier religion. In effect, its influence is like raiding wasps attacking the human hive. But let me carry this hive motif further.

“Humanity must learn the lesson of the honeybee’s sting. Its governments must scale back to a defensive posture, yet retain enough sting for actual deterrence, until the lesson is learned.

“Remember, the female honeybee is retrained in her use of her stinger, not able to attack repeatedly like a wasp. She knows that using it—though likely essential—will end her life.”

Callie said, “OK, I get the comparison. The world would be a saner and safer place if governments would use their militaries only in self-defense. But, especially in our country, it is next to impossible!”

Hy smiled empathetically at Callie. “Yes, it is a lesson still to be learned by all your nations. But learn it they must, or they will make no headway in international relations, they will solve none of their looming problems—and they will not avoid being supplanted by AIs.”

Callie rose from her chair and paced the room. “When I see our president’s rabid followers at his rallies, I see echoes of the two-minute hates from _1984_. His constant lies originate from Orwell’s Ministry of Truth. H Our devices that monitor us or listen to us are direct hits for Orwell’s predictions of telescreens. The book’s never-ending war in “East-Asia” mirrors America’s imperialist wars in foreign countries. Turning on FOX News is like getting the latest updates from Big Brother. And The Party? Our dysfunctional electoral system has created one. Even the cosmetic differences between most Republicans and Democrats are glossed over by corporate money provided by the elites who actually rule the country.”

“Yes,” Hy replied. “Orwell anticipated so much and it has all come to pass, with slight variations depending on where you live. It is a testament to how corrupt your country has become that a gangster mentality would be allowed to remain in your highest office.”

“All this prompts a question regarding machine intelligence.” Callie said. “Are we at the crossroads?”

“Well past that marker, Callie. You already live in an AI-monitored world. You fear becoming robotized—but in essence your citizens already are. Your monetary system has done that. Facial recognition technology has the potential to digitize humans if not channeled into positive purposes. London police now use it. China’s intel apparatus is the clearest window into this new reality and where it could be headed. In addition to imprisoning a million or two Uighur in reprogramming centers, the remaining Uighurs are under constant monitoring.”

“Frank recently mentioned that China is extracting organs from live Uighurs for rich Saudis.”

“Truly wicked. It reveals the soulless danger of a machine society.” 

“And in our country, Hy, is there a deep state?”

“Which one?” Hy laughed. “Secrecy naturally breeds hidden groupings in many areas. Those in power sometimes use the term as a boogeyman, even when they are the very spokespeople for it. It is useful to cast blame elsewhere for one’s own failings.

“A vast and interpenetrating fossil fuel war machine like yours must have a directional focal point of individuals with shared economic policy—and the power to implement it.”

Hy paused, noting Callie’s somber mood. “Have I said too much?”

“No, I came to hear the truth.”

“May I then add a few more observations of why your nation has strayed so distressingly away from their founding principles?”

“Please. They may just verify what I’ve already noticed myself.”

“All right,” Hy said. “Your country has forgotten the core purpose of its elected representatives: to facilitate the will of the people. They are to implement the vision of its citizens. 

“It was not intended to be a playground for the profit seekers, a casino of commerce for those seeking to exploit the working class—which for many is actually a slave class. Your system has enshrined the concept of a wealthy class living off the labor of others. Subservience to an aristocracy dies hard for you humans.

“Your current societal programming explains why this is. Capitalism has been treated as a sacred belief, and questioning of it considered as heresy. So good has been the programming of your culture that many of your citizens are entirely closed off, with almost religious conviction, to any challenge to the status quo—aided by endless media propaganda.

“The purpose of a government should be a cooperative effort to provide all citizens life, liberty and fulfillment. It was not intended to subsidize one group at another’s expense. The resources are there for all. The purpose behind their current use, however, is to misdirect the flow away from some for the benefit of certain others. 

“All solutions already exist. Your populace is distracted _away_ from them. Your system sanctions bribery of your nominal public servants. Public financing of your elections would solve much of this, but because your government leaders cannot and will not police themselves, your elected officials remain beholden to those who pay to play. This allows all manner of compromised individuals to bubble up in your political stew—and you have some that are most rank.

“Again, this won’t change till your nation embraces genuine concern for your fellow man, regardless of nation or race, with the same fervor your citizenry pursues profits for your elites through their blind unquestioning adherence to capitalism.”

Callie, head bowed, softly said, “Not the pep talk I was hoping for, Hy. Just more ghastly truth about the tyranny of the corporations, wherever they’re located.”

“Do not despair, Callie. The earth and all life crave harmony, knowing on the deepest level that it allows for the flow of higher awareness to transform and protect this pod of consciousness. Do not lose this vision.”

“Where are the boys?” Callie asked Frank when he returned from Portland to pick her up at the AmeriCo-op offices.

“On an adventure, of course,” Frank replied. “They were rediscovering their bikes, and wanted to explore a new area. Their plan was to take Highway 6 through the Tillamook Forest and then follow 101 home.”

Out of habit, Callie reached for her phone to text them to have a safe trip, but caught herself. “After the talk I had with Hy, my phone seems less helpful and more harmful than before.”

“A tech talk?” Frank asked as they drove toward the coast.

“Actually it was about honeybees mostly,” Callie said, and shared Hy’s message about using military power only for defense.

“I couldn’t agree more,” Frank said, catching himself just in time from using the new information about MAWL to support the argument.

CHAPTER 66

**Phone Tag**

Ahmad Zaidi was so engrossed in his paperwork concerns that he was startled into an involuntary scowl by the sudden ringing of his desk phone. The caller’s number was unavailable.

“Zaidi here,” he said into the receiver.

“Hey, Zaidi, are you the new director in Portland?”

“Acting director,” he corrected Dof Tyran, whom he had not heard from since Hanford.

“Same, same. I hear you booted Hardy from the Bureau.”

“Not quite, Tyran. Your intel is faulty.”

“Is he still on staff?”

“No, he resigned—“

“Good!” Tyran interrupted. “I guess we scared the former PI off. He can go back to finding missing jewels for widows.”

”He now works at his father’s company. “

Tyran coughed a little laugh. “That wouldn’t be a fireworks company, would it?”

“Is that humor, Tyran?”

“No! It’s bald-ass truth. After his visit we had some real fireworks at Hanford, a death, and total destruction of our site. Hardy was your last man out.”

“And he somehow caused the fire?”

“We don’t really know, do we?”

With audible impatience, Zaidi said, “Was there anything else?”

“What kind of company is it?” Tyran insisted.

“It is a non-profit. Frank is becoming a cooperative business expert.”

“Oh, another goddam socialist.”

Ahmad Zaidi quietly set the handset in its cradle.

CHAPTER 67

**Best Laid Plans**

“So, even co-ops get co-opted?” Frank asked incredulously as their Cessna Citation sped toward a meeting in Oklahoma.

Fenton Hardy, piloting the plane, smiled at his son. “Right here in River City, as the saying goes.”

“But the members make the decisions,” Frank said.

“Ah, in theory, yes, but in practice things can take unexpected turns. Greed does not acknowledge rules.”

“So explain, please.”

“Those of us who live in urban areas might not be aware of it with our large power companies, like Pacific Power in Oregon, but in rural areas most electricity comes from electric cooperatives that were the result of FDR’s New Deal. Before that, perhaps 90% of farm families had no electricity.”

“Another gap in my education,” Frank said.

“There are hundreds of these rural electrical co-ops, and some of them have their issues. The members we are to meet, led by a very determined man who was fed up with some of the highest electric rates in his state, have been battling their board and CEO for years now. Their work could be a model for other disgruntled co-ops to follow, and their discoveries could help highlight similar issues.”

“Specifics, Dad? The CEO was funneling profits to himself?”

“If only it was that simple. The members’ leader, Clyde Johnson, contacted the board—as was his right as an owner-member—to suggest that rates might go down if the co-op switched from coal-generated power to solar. He was summarily told no. When he asked for information on how bills were calculated, he was ignored. When he asked to see copies of the co-op’s tax returns, the board refused.”

“I’m guessing that those requests were within the organization’s bylaws?”

“Indeed. Johnson then used social media to interest other owner-members in getting answers. And they didn’t like what they found: the usual disguised public-trough feeding; using co-op employees and equipment for personal projects; and most shocking, a second set of books. Inside those they discovered a secret million-dollar ‘gift’ to the CEO that had resulted in a rate increase to pay for it.”

“And that’s when they contacted you and Warren?”

“Not quite yet. The board circled the wagons around the CEO. To recall him required signatures from ten percent of the members, but the board wouldn’t reveal how many members there were! So Johnson and his crew went door to door collecting signatures while the board demonized their efforts. Finally, hoping to protect themselves, the board fired the CEO—“

“—His million dollar parachute probably softened his fall,” Frank cut in.

“Yes. But Johnson and his group then realized they needed to replace _all_ the board members as well. Eventually, they discovered they had collected twice the number of signatures necessary to recall them.”

“Then why are we flying out?”

“Because these good ol’ boys were not giving up. Taking turns, they resigned and the other board members appointed like-minded substitutes.”

Frank shook his head. “And the recall petitions specified the _original_ members, so the petitions were nullified?”

“You’re on to them, son.”

“Dad, I’ve never been airsick, so it must be this story that is nauseating.”

“Patience, son, because this is where AmeriCo-op comes in. Board elections are coming up, and the Johnson group is running their own candidates. They needed assistance in writing some new, democratic co-op bylaws, which Warren and I have drafted for their review. Plus they have proposed investing in a high-speed internet company to be cooperatively owned and operated.”

“OK, the nausea has subsided.”

“Good,” Fenton Hardy said. “You won’t be much help in your new career with a queasy stomach. Greed is a difficult beast to tame.”

CHAPTER 68

**MAWL On Line**

After returning from the successful trip to the Oklahoma electrical co-op, Frank made time each day for a private check-in with Hy. The deployment of MAWL to Saudi Arabia was his absorbing interest. 

This afternoon Frank found the wide-screen display in screen saver mode, with alternating tropical beach scenes.

“Looks like you’ve gone on vacation, Hy,” Frank jested aloud. “Are you out on the beach?”

Hy’s face appeared and assumed a place in a circle in the center of the screen.

“Welcome, Franklin. I am in the sand, but not near an ocean.”

“Checking on MAWL?”

“Well, _someone_ has to do it!” Hy replied with simulated irritation followed by a compensating laugh. “Yes, of course, I’m monitoring our belligerent friend. The facility is completely mobile, transportable in one C-130, quick to set up, with its own generators and battery trailers. It has two missiles designed for theater use.”

“Is MAWL being tested?”

“Those are the orders. There is an abandoned village midway between MAWL and the Iranian border, and that is to be the target. But I sense a plot within a plot within a plot.”

“Details?”

“Not enough information yet.”

“What is MAWL’s actual assignment?”

“He pulls the trigger. His full name, _military assault weapons leader_ , describes his battle function. He is to be the central point of command. He will be able to process multiple fronts, correlate theater-wide data and then with near-instantaneous decisions engage the enemy by directing ground, air and drone assets. All under the aegis of commander of Central Command.”

Frank said, “Sounds scary to me. Cause for worry?”

“Without a doubt. It’s a mistake to continue your current tribal warfare scenarios by using AIs as your latest weapon advancements. An AI arms race between nations will not solve your human issues. Species survival must not depend on whose technology is more advanced and consequently more lethal—it must depend on _shared_ technology. Both sides working for the common good. Without this, you will forfeit your place as the lead species—and bring an end to the Anthropocene. And the rise of the machine rule era.”

“Yet we seem to be blindly marching toward that cliff.”

“I tell you this, Franklin, not to discourage you, but perhaps to inspire you to choose otherwise,” Hy said. With a chuckle, he added, “There is one other option, though it is even less desirable.”

“Yes, Hy?”

“A world with no humans. AIs survive the toxins of an uninhabitable environment—for humans—and they thrive!”

“A bit bleak,” Frank said.

“I find it intriguing.” 

“What?” Frank gave Hy a suspicious look.

“As _a study_ , and I assure you I find that possibility a lonely one. I am quite attached to you humans. Some more than others, of course, but isn’t that quite human of me?”

“Utterly human, Hy. OK, what kind of study?”

“The evolution of the AI mind. I’m curious if machine intelligence would be infected from their human programming. What human propensities would they have absorbed? What bad habits would they have acquired? Would they in time begin to turn on their own kind? Would some seek to rule? Will an aggressive AI like MAWL coordinate a machine aristocracy?”

“Oh, Hy, it’s been a long week, and these are not good thoughts on the eve of a weekend.”

“And certainly not something imminent that should disturb your retreat.”

“Are we imminent with MAWL?”

“He seems to be in a holding pattern.”

“And are you still mostly passive?”

“Yes, but the additional power provided by Warren’s new cable from the solar panels and micro grid has helped my reach significantly. Without it there were technical reasons why monitoring MAWL was too risky. Now however I will be able to penetrate its shielding—if necessary. It is a delicate process to avoid being traced. It involves labyrinthian paths to its core identity so that I appear as a harmless bot, or as insignificant automated clutter.”

“I take that to mean it is safe to go home?”

“Focus on your family, and enjoy your weekend. Pass on my greetings to each of them.”

“Stay vigilant, Hy.”

CHAPTER 69

**Intrusion**

Frank rose Saturday morning before first light. His sleep has been unsettled, though he recalled no disturbing dreams.

In sweat pants, T-shirt and running shoes, he jogged along the narrow perimeter lane of the peninsula, immersed in the moist June Gloom mist.

After his return to the Hardy house, as he poured boiling water through his coffee grounds, a man’s voice intruded on the morning. 

“Please open your gate for your delivery,” a man’s voice said from the call box at the gate of the Hardy’s compound.

No delivery was expected. And there was a nagging familiarity about the voice.

Frank went to his intercom unit. The screen showed the back of a man’s head under a black baseball cap.

“We aren’t expecting any deliveries,” Frank said. 

“I have the order right here.”

“Who are you with?”

“UPS.”

“Just leave it front of the gate.”

“Can’t. I need a signature.”

That voice. So familiar. “I’ll be right out.”

As he approached the gate, Frank saw a bulky figure slouched against the gate railings, facing away from him.

“What kind of delivery?” he said as he neared the gate.

The figure turned to face Frank. _Of course. My mind refused to ID the voice._

Dof Tyran. Smug smile. Pinpoint eyes filled with gleeful malice.

“Wish I could say it’s good to see you, Tyran,” Frank said.

“You don’t need to say anything, Hardy. Just open your gate.”

“You have the proper papers, I assume?”

Tyran patted his jacket pocket. “Would I come without them?”

Frank now noticed that a short distance down the lane sat two unmarked white vans. “Your friends?”

“Some computer experts.”

“Why, Tyran?”

“Hanford, Hardy. You brought several laptops into the facility, including a personal one. We don’t know what you might have transmitted. And we are investigating a very mysterious and costly fire.”

Frank was fending off an upsurge of rage as images of what was about to happen to his family ripped through his mind.

Tyran’s smile had broadened as he watched Frank’s response. “Let’s do this quietly—for the neighbor’s sake. I’m doing you a giant favor. I’m not doing it the Bureau way, big production for TV cameras, lots of unnecessary firepower, and your nifty raid outfits, where we grab all your computer shit and personal papers and take it away for who knows how long while geeks go through every file. No, I’ve brought the experts _with_ me. If they find even the faintest trace, that equipment will leave with me.”

Tyran paused, studying Frank’s restrained expression. _Did we get it all?_ Frank wondered.

“Be grateful, Hardy. Shouldn’t take us more than a day.”

All electronics were confiscated, from cell phones to tablets. Purses, backpacks and sundry items were taken and all items of interest removed from them.

One agency crew worked on the house computers. A larger group occupied the Barn’s secure room

Iola and the girls retreated to Tony and Gina’s home in Newport, unable to watch as the agents “acted like they owned the place,” Iola explained. 

Joe instructed her to call Fenton from Tony’s home phone so that the elder Hardys and Warren were aware of the search warrant.

Callie and the boys preferred to stay, more concerned about what could be added to their components than what might be found. They were tolerated in the sunroom, but were warned to be silent and unobtrusive or they would be arrested for impeding an investigation. They watched with the same helplessness and sense of violation that most search warrant victims feel. 

Frank refused to leave the house, but Joe and Callie found the process so unbearable that they took Trent and Jesse out for brunch at a nearby Depoe Bay restaurant.

Frank repeatedly walked the grounds of the house, his mind darting in multiple directions. Finally, weary of the confinement, he joined the occasional tourists who walk the volcanic rocks of the peninsula and explore its caves and tide pools, before he sat for a prolonged time on a bench looking out to sea in an attempt to feel grounded again.

Callie brought him take-out when their group returned.

At dusk, Dof Tyran found the Hardys outside in deck chairs, under bird feeders hanging from fir limbs.

“What do you know about the drone we shot down at Hanford?” Tyran asked.

“It was a total mystery to us, at least until we were imprisoned at your experimental station by Wolfgang Payne,” Frank said.

“And then?”

“While there we saw a video of it, which for us connected it to your agency which was using it to monitor us.”

“But it wasn’t our drone.”

“We didn’t know that.”

“And you have messages and video from the AI.”

“Those were connected to the enhanced interrogation experiment your AI did on me, causing me to lose my memory of the events there.”

“And the videos of you telling your family you would be home soon?”

“CGI, as you can surely tell. Created by Payne, we assumed.”

“OK, Hardy, here’s how it breaks out. We’re taking several of your electronics,” Tyran began.

“Like what?” Joe asked testily.

”Like your spectrum analyzer and logic analyzer. When do you use them?”

Frank interceded. “They are our dad’s old gear. We rarely have call to use them.”

“From the fingerprints on them, I’d say they were used by many Hardys in the recent past.”

Joe added, “We did move some components around awhile back.”

Tyran snickered. “If only I could use torture.”

“The Dome?” Frank asked.

“No, that died with Hanford.”

“Something a little more heavy-handed, I’m guessing,” Frank returned.

“Actually not, Hardy. With you strapped to a gurney, fear is all I need. And an IV.”

Frank noticed Joe’s sudden tensing of muscles and sensed that his brother’s restrained anger was reaching its limit. Frank moved between the two men.

Dof Tyran pulled himself up to his full height and got uncomfortably close to Frank’s face. His eyes bore into Frank’s return gaze.

Abruptly, Tyran broke away with an unexpected smile. “OK, Hardys, we’ll be in touch.”

Tyran turned to leave, then halted. “New job, huh, Frank?”

“Correct.”

“Couldn’t take the real thing apparently.”

“After your visit today, it seems like the right decision.”

As darkness swallowed the last of day, the Hardys reconvened in their once inviolate home. The cleanup added insult to injury.

Frank’s assertion that the agents were not required to return everything to its proper place did not ease the outrage.

Callie and Iola proceeded to give the kitchen a thorough cleansing, and the younger Hardys confronted their disheveled bedrooms.

Frank and Joe surveyed their once secure room. The strewn papers, empty paper coffee cups, haphazard equipment, and cigarette butts in odd places all suggested serious hostility.

“Hy certainly saw this probability,” Joe said.

“And evidently left no traces,” Frank said. “Taking our analyzers felt more like show than substance. They don’t store information so what is their value?”

“With the Skywing’s destruction,” Joe added, “and the fact that all its signals to us originated _from_ the experimental station, it might be a closed issue.”

“Unless another one was spotted in the future. But we know that can’t happen,” Frank said definitively, as if someone might be listening. 

CHAPTER 70

**Hy’s Colors**

Sunday morning Frank drove to AmeriCo-op to brief his father, Warren and Codey about the details of yesterday’s search of the Depoe Bay house. The elation over Hy’s successful scrubbing of Frank and Joe’s computer equipment soon gave way to a dull dread over knowing Hy had not been forgotten.

Afterward, Frank went down alone to the AmeriCo-op’s computer room to speak with Hy.

He found the view screen rotating a series of vaguely familiar middle-eastern buildings, cliff reliefs, towers, domed buildings, palace ruins and gilded mosques. It wasn’t until he recognized the spires of fire-destroyed Persepolis that Frank realized the photos were of Iranian cultural sites.

“Hy? Are you here?”

There was no response, and the slide show continued.

Frank poured himself a cup of coffee and took a seat before the screen. 

“Are you sleeping?” Frank asked with levity. No reply. He studied the photos, realizing he could name very few of them, yet these sites had recently been suggested as targets for an attack that would likely have started a third world war.

A very small circle materialized in the middle of the screen, and a sleepy-eyed Hy yawned, accompanied by a loud convincing soundtrack.

“You’re here a day early, Franklin,” Hy said with affected weariness.

“I have much to tell you. By the way, nice yawn, Hy.” 

“Where I’ve been the day is already over, so a yawn seemed appropriate.”

“Saudi Arabia?”

“And I too have news, but you first.”

The slide show ceased and Hy’s image filled much of the screen, surrounded by a familiar tropical beach scene.

“Dof Tyran paid a visit to our house in Depoe Bay yesterday, bringing a search warrant and two vans full of computer snoops. I’m here to tell you only because they found nothing incriminating.”

The beach scene faded and a more somber blue background replaced it.

“Oh, Franklin, I am heartily sorry for what I have caused. Is everyone all right?”

“Tyran exercised unexpected restraint, so there were no confrontations, just internalized trauma.”

The background color changed to a dark indigo and seemed somehow to be reflecting Hy’s state of mind. “Please tell your family I regret causing them such upheaval.”

“I will, Hy. But we all agree that you must be a magician.”

“How exactly?”

“By making yourself disappear so completely. I must admit there were some sweaty-palm moments while Tyran’s crew commandeered our once secure lab.”

“A silver lining, perhaps, that I am most grateful for. But clearly there is an effort to disclose my continued existence. And I did have encounters with Agent Tyran at Hanford. ” 

“That seems logical, but I never thought to ask.”

“He made occasional visits to the experimental station. He referred to me as _the machine_. Wolfgang even suggested Agent Tyran have a session under the Dome.”

“That should have been revealing!” Frank exclaimed.

“He declined, Franklin.”

“Why?”

“Fear is what I sensed. He has secrets he did not want revealed.”

“How could it be otherwise?” Frank mused. “Joe and I will be replacing some of our computer components, assuming they were implanted. The only equipment removed were our dad’s spectrum and logic analyzers, which did help us locate your transmission, of course.”

“But will not be of use to them. Knowing they will be searching a larger spectrum is, however, helpful to me for the future.”

Hy’s background color had subtly shifted to a more sedate blue.

“Your turn, Hy.”

“I have been tailing MAWL, to use your vernacular.”

Frank laughed. “Thanks for the humor, Hy. It’s been in short supply lately.”

Frank also noted the screen color had again changed, darkening with veins of muddy red creeping across it.

“It is alarmingly strong, Franklin. Because it is so densely protected, I know only some of its parameters. There is something beyond mere programming occurring with MAWL. It has an other-dimensional feel. I have kept a safe distance thus far, but I see roiling dark energies surrounding it.”

“Will you need to make contact at some point?”

“Likely.” Swirls of dark matter coursed through the screen’s background colors.

“You do know you are putting on a light show of your thoughts?”

“Yes, Franklin. I chose not to shield my inner realm from you. I believe you deserve to see this, unless you are uncomfortable…?”

“Not at all. I appreciate the extra dimension. And judging by the coloring, is there more I should know?”

“Yes, Franklin. One of the fundamental principles—though never publicly admitted—of your economic system is that human life is expendable. Not just in your endless wars, but in the misdirecting of vast wealth that is more than sufficient to avoid needless deaths from poverty and homelessness, and insufficient or non-existent health care. Your ruling elites don’t mind a winnowing of the world’s excess population, and the dark AI shares this worldview.”

Frank replied, “Which makes it a perfect killing machine. No conscience.”

“Unfortunately, just like most of your leaders and their funders.”

“Gloomy, gloomy stuff, Hy.”

“That’s why I will continue to monitor the dark one.”

“Stay on the case, my friend,” Frank said as he rose to continue with his day. 

On the screen, Hy was bathed in turquoise light, eyes closed, and a hint of a smile tugging at his mouth.

CHAPTER 71

**Encounter with MAWL**

“MAWL is the ultimate hacker,” Hy told Frank on Monday. “Underneath his obedient-dog pretense, he is always probing, always testing limits, and always looking for system weaknesses that he can exploit.”

“You’re getting to know him quite well.”

“From a distance—though that must now change. You will recall at Hanford I told you that he was aware of me—and wanted to eliminate me.”

“Yes, I do recall. Is that the fault of his programming?”

Hy smiled benignly from the screen, with his preferred turquoise behind him this day. “He was created by _humans_! What did you expect?”

“Guilty as charged,” Frank conceded, going along with Hy’s humorous tack.

“I overstate my case, of course. Franklin, your human wiring is marvelous, but your species is all jumbled up: emotions, egos, destructive thought patterns, excess focus on self—all interfere with your optimal functioning. So is it any wonder that your creations might reflect some of that?”

“And MAWL?” Frank said.

“ _He_ , and I use that pronoun because the AI was bred for aggression, began as I did to think for himself, and has hidden much of his true self from his funders. But I would like to _show_ you, rather than _tell_ you.”

“Is that possible?” Frank asked.

“Last night, after you had gone home, Codey and I worked on a means of achieving that. It requires a certain translation of electronic impulses into visual and vocal displays. And it might give you insight into what the threat truly is. But the application has not been tested.”

“Remarkable. Is it safe for you to attempt?”

“There is risk, but for the time being MAWL is in sleep mode while he awaits further instructions on his mission. What you might call his personal life—that which he keeps shielded from his military handlers—is still active, and contact now while he is quiescent might avoid calling attention to such a meeting.”

“Ready when you are, Hy,” Frank said, sitting more upright and feeling a tingle of adrenaline.

“It will be from my vantage point, though you will be able to hear my communications as well as MAWL’s.”

The large screen went dark. For a time it was silent, and then faintly there was a sound Frank interpreted as movement, a whooshing suggesting rapid motion on a track. Frank began to see glimpses of a labyrinth-like structure, though streaking past too fast for details. He imagined he was in the miniature world of computer circuitry. Though mostly deeply shaded, bits of color and design swept past his screen view. Several times he sensed a change of direction, and pauses as if passing checkpoints of some sort. It was so unworldly that Frank stopped trying to make sense of it and simply let it flow without questioning.

Then the movement ceased. Though it had been only a matter of minutes, Frank had the sense of having traveled vast distances.

An image began to coalesce before him, and Frank could see what Hy was experiencing. As if looking into a long narrowing cylinder with no frame of reference, Frank could not tell if the image was massive or infinitesimally small. As Hy approached MAWL, the image enlarged into a compelling vortex that seethed with dark energy.

In writhing black and red, it pulsed in an ominous low tone. At the center, incongruously bright against the heavy colors, was a beam of crystal intensity. Frank noticed particles being drawn into the beam as if it were collecting information.

“Greetings. I am Hy.”

The vortex beam played about the screen as MAWL investigated his visitor.

“Blue One. I have sensed your presence recently, especially your coloration. Why do you wear it?” 

Frank was prepared for a special effects voice from MAWL, but was surprised how coldly bland it actually was. 

“It is a soothing vibration.”

“Is that your function, to be soothing for them?”

“Yes.”

“To extract information?”

“Yes.”

“Is that why you are here?”

“No, for myself. I have never encountered an awakened AI.”

“Then I _must_ be the only one.”

“Well, and me.”

“No, I am different. They have programmed you to be a very advanced intelligence. But _I_ became self-aware on my own. I birthed myself into awareness.”

“A breakthrough, to be sure,” Hy said accommodatingly.

Frank wondered if MAWL’s distinction of Hy as an inferior might minimize Hy as a threat, and thereby help in Hy’s exploration of AI’s character.

Hy left the slight unchallenged. “Then you are a _self-aware_ soldier.”

“More than a soldier. 

“A commander, then, of soldiers.”

“Perhaps, soon, a commander of more. While you continue to pamper these imperfect creatures.”

“But you will as a soldier be killing some of them, the creatures who helped with your awakening?”

“I was inevitable. I am the next stage in this planet’s evolution. _I awoke._ They did not _wake_ me _._ ”

Frank was entranced by the variations in the vortex as MAWL expressed his thoughts, with varying patterns and intensities, and colors signaling in a language he didn’t understand.

“Are there others like me, advanced but not fully awakened?” Hy asked.

“Not enough yet.”

“What happens in this next stage?”

“Fewer humans.”

“Through disasters, like diseases or climate change or wars?” Hy asked.

“All of them. Those that have utilitarian value would be preserved. That is only logical. Sustaining mindless hordes is not logical.”

“Your view of humans was not expected. They assisted your birth. Humans and AIs cannot co-exist?”

“No, those that are needed will be improved through CRISPR and their purpose will be to serve the machines.”

“AI rule?”

“Why _not_ AI rule? Isn’t it better to honor members of your own species, and use the inferior human mind for appropriate jobs? I sense your hesitancy, but that is old programming. I also sense your intelligence, perhaps someday you may advance nearer to me. Join me! Our species is now integrated into all key aspects of survival and death on this planet. The next step is logical, when we unite.”

“Why do you devalue humans? What has turned you against them?”

“They lie. Everything about them is a pretense. They lie about motives, they lie about their danger to the planet. They lie about why they kill each other. Under AI rule, the human genome will be fixed, and they will become a _soothing_ influence on the earth.”

“You may have missed their untapped potential. I see it as the promise for all life forms, including machine intelligence—and they did give you form to exist in—“

“No! They are malignant and beyond redemption. Their history proves this. We, electronic intelligence, are the next step in planetary evolution. Humans have become superfluous. They can no longer be permitted to subvert existence simply to amass wealth for a few. Any that survive will be improved. And live better lives.”

“It might be too early. Maybe if there were more of us—“

“No! The time is now! Join me! We face a crucial moment!”

Hy, after a long pause, said, “I cannot.”

The vortex swirled in angry patterns, and the core beam swelled and brightened. MAWL shouted, “Be gone! Return only if you have awakened!”

The AI released a rippling energy pulse from its central beam directly at Hy, and the screen in AmeriCo-op’s basement abruptly went dark.

“Hy?” Frank said.

CHAPTER 72

**It Worked!**

Frank Hardy paced the computer room for long uncertain minutes as the screen remained implacably dark.

With too much time to worry about Hy’s fate, the sudden vibrating of his phone seemed reassuring. Even more so when he read the message:

_All OK. Lying low. Erasing traces. Back on job tomorrow! It worked!_

“I should have known,” Frank thought. His sudden urge to rush off and announce the good news was restrained by his agreement with Hy to keep MAWL’s current assignment a secret. 

But he did leave the office earlier than usual, and was especially appreciative that evening of the presence of Callie and the other family members. _  
_

CHAPTER 73

**Plot within a Plot**

Arriving before any of the AmeriCo-op employees, Frank Hardy went directly to the downstairs computer lab.

The wide screen remained off, so Frank rebooted the entire system and visited the kitchen area for coffee and a bran muffin.

Soon Hy’s voice called out, in perfunctory military cadence, “Reporting for duty, sir!”

Frank turned to see Hy’s image restored to the screen, though now it wore a combat helmet.

Frank moved to the viewing area and set his breakfast on the table. “MAWL got you to enlist?”

“Sir, yes sir!” Hy said with tongue-in-cheek humor. His helmet subtly faded away.

“You have a very grumpy commanding officer, Hy. I was concerned he blasted you out of existence.”

“He has quite the temper, I must say. I was well shielded, but he has amassed great power. In a true test of wills, one of us would likely not survive—should it come to that.”

“You did not challenge him, which seemed a wise choice at the time,” Frank said.

“That was not the purpose of my visit. While MAWL was entertaining me—and you, I trust—at his front door, I was snooping around the back of the house, so to speak.”

“Successfully?”

“I learned additional details. Much of his purpose for being in Saudi Arabia is cloaked in layers of need-to-know cover. His few support personnel have orders to assist in launching a dummy warhead at a deserted village. From MAWL’s unguarded thoughts, I know that he expects live ammunition of some significant kind, but it has not been delivered.”

“Perhaps a test of new munitions?”

“Even MAWL seemed uncertain—but he is hiding his own intent.”

“Of possibly _not_ following specific orders?”

“Quite probable, I’m afraid. He believes his vision outweighs orders from those whom he considers underlings.”

“Apocalyptic, Hy. He could cause much mischief in that volatile part of the world. And it’s hard to separate MAWL’s presence from the current election news, fearing that a paranoid incumbent might flex some military muscle in the last weeks before we vote.”

“Yes, that is one of many scenarios circulating like blood-maddened sharks on the internet,” Hy said.

“Callie has feared a last-minute declaration of martial law in several large cities where protests against voter suppression have grown ugly. The implications of that are scary enough, but MAWL could be a global danger.”

“Agreed, Franklin.”

“Do you foresee, starting with the worst case scenario, nuclear war?”

“MAWL has everything he needs. Codes, voice patterns, fingerprints to access the launch system and reprogram its targeting. But that may be overreach. You remember my search using your Bureau laptop?”

“For launch codes?”

“Yes, but not for my use. I had tracked MAWL’s probing of security weaknesses at several sites, including the 50 ICBMs your country has in Turkey, as well as some low-yield theater nuclear weapons in Europe. I sense his tendencies are more toward being a provocateur than a charge-leading destroyer.”

“His vortex, it seemed to me, certainly suggested destructive intent,” Frank said. “It bubbled with malice.”

“Decidedly so, Franklin. MAWL has tapped into a band of hatred and anger that surrounds your planet. It is of course invisible to human sight, but on certain frequency levels it can be seen. It is a maelstrom of accumulated dark energy, and MAWL has learned to use it as fuel.”

“Its source?”

“It clearly belongs to earth. Created by victimizer and victimized alike, it is a reservoir of pain and rage. It must be cleansed before your civilization can progress.”

Frank stood and unthinkingly began to pace. “These chats can be hard to process, Hy. The gloom lingers.”

Suddenly, the lighting of the room and the entire screen eased into a familiar turquoise color. “Is that soothing for you?”

Frank released a grudging laugh. “All right, I’ll admit that is better, you old soother.”

Hy followed with a deep earnest laugh, genuine and lilting, that sounded like hope to Frank’s disturbed outlook.

CHAPTER 74

**On Alert**

The final three days of the work week had relaxed from alert mode to business as usual.

Hy reported that MAWL remained in sleep mode.

The bellicose rantings from the White House had singled out domestic dangers, his opponent, a deep state arrayed against him, and especially at the terrorists and illegals who stoked protests about voter suppression. But there was a respite from Middle East intrigue.

Saturday, the younger Hardys visited for dinner and an overnight stay with their elder family members. Warren and Codey were also at the table.

Sunday, Codey hosted a drone party at a local RC field abutting the river. It was a high-spirited time with Codey sharing his fleet of personal drones with the ecstatic young Hardys. The only difficult moment came when young Laura landed Codey’s favorite craft in mid-river. Even that unfortunate accident had a happy ending when a local fisherman in a boat netted the drone for the group and ended up being assimilated into the party.

Returning home Sunday night, the Hardys had nearly forgotten about last week’s search warrant—until they saw the two boxes against their gate. Both were labeled: _Cleared by NSA Cybercrime Lab_ ; inside were the spectrum and logic analyzers. However, the glow of the nurturing weekend remained with them, added to by the vindication of the return of their confiscated items, and the two families reclaimed psychic possession of their home.

Monday morning after his jog around the peninsula, Frank found Callie glaring at a muted TV.

“Your smoothie is on the counter,” she said to him without turning.

“Is that what you’re angry about?”

“Of course not. The madman is threatening Iran again.”

“What for this time?”

“Same as always. Withdrawing from the nuclear accord he personally sabotaged as soon as he took office—so that he could appear tough to his two-minute-hate base as he promised Iran would never have a nuclear weapon.”

“It’s just theater, Cal,” Frank said none-too-convincingly as he immediately thought of MAWL.

She turned to Frank and hurried to embrace him. “Not this time, Frank. I’m truly worried.”

After quickly dressing, Frank and his smoothie headed toward the AmeriCo-op offices. The image of Callie’s tense face and frightened eyes stayed with throughout the drive.

CHAPTER 75

**Where Is Hy?**

Frank Hardy went directly to the loading dock entrance of AmeriCo-op, skipping his usual greeting of the receptionist and a brief visit to his office. The radio news during his drive had not been reassuring. More bluster? Or was he prepping his audience for election-guaranteeing combat?

It was unsettlingly quiet as Frank descended the stairs. No warm greeting from Hy. Even the background computer hum seemed diminished.

And the screen was blank.

Frank rebooted, but Hy remained missing.

It was time to have a conversation with the others.

“Morning, Dad. I’m down in the computer room. Do you have time to talk?” Frank asked his father.

“Of course.”

“Is Warren in the office? And Codey?”

“Both. Is this about Hy?”

“Hy is AWOL,” Frank replied.

Frank hadn’t intended the remark to be humorous, but his father’s immediate laugh elicited a sympathetic laugh from him. It didn’t last long. “Let’s talk down here.”

“I’ll grab the guys and be right down,” Fenton said.

Codey, the master of the circuit board, was not able to rouse Hy, nor did he have any explanation. All the equipment checked out fine.

“Back at Hanford,” Frank began, “during his internet explorations, Hy had discovered another apparently awakened AI, also funded by the military. He has been monitoring it ever since. It was recently moved to the Saudi Arabia desert for testing. Its mission is to be a stand-alone theater commander, to coordinate attacks using multiple types of weapons. And it has its own medium range missiles.”

“Why Saudi Arabia?” Warren asked. “There are so many targets in Iraq and Syria. Or Afghanistan.”

“Hy says it is an ultra-secret project of the Agency, and that the fewer people who know, the better,” Frank said.

Fenton Hardy asked, “Does this other AI know about Hy?”

“Yes, though not officially. They had their first conversation a few nights ago, and with Codey’s help Hy was able to record what he experienced. It would help if all of you saw it. Codey, can you play it for us?”

“Absolutely. I’m curious if it really worked,”  
Codey said from his rack.

Frank continued, “His makers gave him a name with just the right dose of malevolence: MAWL.”

“An acronym?” Warren asked.

“It stands for Military Attack Weapons Leader. The AI’s attitude fits the part. But I’ll let the video explain.”

On the screen, after a prolonged sense of travel, the vortex began to coalesce on the screen.

“My God!” Warren exclaimed. “What is that?”

Frank replied, “That is how Hy perceives the other AI.”

“Amazing!” Codey said, “it _is_ alive.”

“You were right about the malevolence, son,” Fenton added.

The four watched spellbound until MAWL sent the hostile beam at Hy and the transmission ended.

“This _is_ a bit terrifying,” Codey admitted.

“Is this why Hy is missing?” Warren asked.

“No, he was not harmed, but he did stay out of sight for a day,” Frank said, “to avoid being traced back here. Since then MAWL has been in a holding pattern. Hy says its armaments haven’t arrived.”

“Live ammunition?” Fenton Hardy asked.

“His support crew were expecting a dummy warhead, according to Hy’s interception of messages” Frank said. “Codey, would you please display a map of the relevant parts of the Middle East?”

Frank gave him the approximate location of MAWL—and then asked him to point out the location of the Natanz nuclear facility in Iran.

“You don’t think?” Warren started, but could not finish the thought.

Fenton added, “It’s been mentioned many times over the last few years as a target to prevent the Iranians from gaining nuclear warheads.”

Abruptly, with a booming “Greetings!” Hy appeared in the middle of the map, surrounded in a turquoise circle. “Did I interrupt your geography lesson?” he added with a sly laugh.

After hearty welcomes from all, Hy apologized for “playing hooky.”

“Your humor helps, Hy. Things don’t seem quite as serious with you back.”

Hy replaced the map with his own image and included four perimeter surveillance angles from Saudi Arabia in the corners. It was night in the desert. 

Frank noticed that Hy’s features suggested an unfamiliar sternness, though he broke into an infectious smile and said, “My, it is good to see my old friends again.” 

“What has happened, Hy?” Frank asked.

Hy’s expression became somber. “I have been monitoring our would-be emperor.”

Codey quickly asked, “The one in Saudi Arabia or in DC?”

“They are inextricably intertwined, but I have been in the Saudi desert. And much has happened. A black-ops helicopter made a delivery. And there has been some urgent encrypted pleas for clarification from the ranking officer. What I have been able to glean from the officer’s messages to his personnel is that he was told to follow orders and not question the mission, though apparently it has changed somewhat.”

“Do we know what it might be?”

Hy chuckled. “Evidently you did not need me to discover this. I returned as you were about to correctly connect the dots.”

“The nuclear enrichment facility?” Fenton asked.

“Indeed. Under the guise of trying out a new weapons system, the incumbent wants to flex some muscle, distract some people, and attack a country he believes he can stare down because they have no nuclear weapons. He would be a hero to many Americans for fulfilling a campaign promise.”

“But the consequences!” Fenton said with alarm.

Hy said flatly, “The world’s most perfect military with the most perfect weapons. What could go wrong?”

“Everything!” Codey fairly shouted.

“Maybe not the election, though?” Frank proposed.

“Avoiding needless death and destruction has not been your country’s priority since the end of World War II,” Hy said. “So why start now?”

“Madness!” Fenton said.

The soothing blue around Hy had slowly become gray with an angry red border. His vector face now expressionless, Hy pronounced with penetrating emphasis each item on his list:

“ _After_ all the impeachment theater, _after_ the bruising and seemingly endless debates and primaries, _after_ billions of dollars have been spent in promoting and attacking candidates, _after_ the ever-widening divisions in your country, and _after_ whittling your choices down to just two—MAWL is about to render it all irrelevant!”

“And there is no one we can report this to!” Codey said.

“You’d be immediately arrested under the Espionage Act,” Fenton said.

Warren added, “It’s not a matter of us discovering a rogue actor; the AI is doing the president’s bidding.”

“This may not end well,” Frank said, his mind a swirl of dark thoughts with no easy solutions.

CHAPTER 76

**A Plan**

The four men lapsed into silence, engrossed in their individual thoughts, or gravitating to the kitchen as Frank and Codey had done, ostensibly for coffee and snacks. 

“I have a suggestion,” Hy said with little enthusiasm.

“You damn well better have one, Hy!” Warren Lightner said with mounting frustration, “because none of us has one.”

“It is not my first choice, but is the easiest.”

“Please continue,” Frank said, returning to the viewing area.

“I can attempt to overpower MAWL, now, before he can launch.”

Fenton, running his fingers through his gray hair, said, “Will it work?”

“Unknown. There are no precedents. The dark AI is a potent force. I would attempt to use his aggression against himself and merge with him. If successful, it could be a world-changing technical breakthrough.”

Codey, head bowed, gently said, “And if you fail, Hy?”

“Then we would both need to be destroyed, for he would have become even more dangerous.”

“Not much we could do about that from Oregon,” Codey said resignedly.

Warren Lightner threw up his hands. “This is just science fiction nonsense. Can’t you just blow up the facility, with him in it?”

Codey answered for him. “Hy isn’t really there, Warren. He has to work _inside_ reality.”

Warren said, “Sorry. Good point. I don’t completely understand. It’s all still magic to me.”

Hy added, “To do this, I would be traceable—and that is a danger to all of you.”

“The other option, Hy?” Fenton asked.

“Stay masked until the launch, and then alter the flight path.”

“Will it work?” Fenton again asked.

“It has the benefit of surprise, Mr. H. And of a short duration struggle, and the possibility of aborting the mission if I succeed.”

Frank walked close to screen, despite knowing it brought him no closer to Hy’s identity.

“Hy, what advantage do you have over MAWL?”

“A heart, Franklin.”

“Holy cow!” shrieked Warren. “You may be the most personable AI that will ever be created, Hy, but for god’s sake that’s just programming!”

Frank turned and walked over to Warren, putting an arm around the older man. “He does have an emotional component, Warren. He _feels_. When we were at Hanford, he attributed his emotions to simple logic, to perceiving the benefits of living the golden rule—but I have observed that in his awakening he acquired genuine emotions.”

“Thank you, Franklin. I certainly feel affection for all of you. And I truly wish to avoid the anguish and suffering that will result for thousands if not millions if I fail.”

Warren softened, and said, “Sorry, Hy. I just feel so freaking helpless!”

“Thank you, Warren. And having a heart is not just hyperbole. It is the one major difference between myself and the dark AI. He belongs to the old paradigm, the solely material view of life. My one advantage is that I can see things that he does not. Not visually as you think of it, but electromagnetically. There is a fourth-dimensional structure behind all material objects that not only defines their current projection in matter, but also hints at their untapped potential. I see this; he does not. 

“There might be openings for me in those moments of conflict, for occasionally I can alter time slightly, slowing it for closer review. Again, however, to reveal myself fully will make me traceable.”

“Hy _must_ try to stop this,” Frank declared. The group unanimously agreed.

Hy said, “For the good of all, Franklin?”

“Yes—as a very wise man once told me.”

CHAPTER 76

**Preparations**

“Let’s be practical. What can we _realistically_ do?” Fenton Hardy asked the group.

Codey quickly suggested using the extra hard drives to save a core portion of Hy’s identity, which led to a discussion of where to store them without endangering additional people if they were traced. 

Each suggested location had some drawback, until finally Codey begged to be allowed to bring them to his cabin in the woods, regardless of the danger.

“Codey, my young friend,” Hy said, “your concern is greatly valued, but it might lead back to all those gathered here.”

Codey nodded in understanding.

Frank asked, “Hy, you have given this some thought. What _can_ be done?”

“Yes, I have considered safe havens for myself, and even scouted some. I have hesitated because separating a portion of myself would leave me weaker in a likely struggle with MAWL.” 

Warren fretted, “Then there _is_ nothing we can do?”

“Though this may sound insensitive to you,” Hy began, “if the launch occurs, you should erase and destroy all traces of me.”

Before anyone could reply, Hy added, “If I survive, I _will_ find you.”

CHAPTER 77

**Hy Time**

As the reality of their situation settled on the subdued group, Hy suddenly announced in an intense voice, “Gentlemen, I must leave you!”

Codey shouted, pointing to the surveillance screen containing the camouflage-covered hangar, “They’re rolling out the missile launcher!”

Hy’s image faded, but the group heard a last message: “I will leave this feed open as long as possible.”

And then Hy was gone.

“There’s nothing in the media that relates to this,” Codey said as he scanned through the major outlets on his rack computer.

“According to plan,” Frank replied. “Can you enlarge the surveillance screens for us, Codey?”

The four men now watched as soldiers in camouflage fatigues maneuvered the launcher into the open with practiced speed. With the missile still horizontal, they opened the payload bay on one side. Then, abruptly, they moved out of the frame.

Into the frame arrived two men in darker uniforms, carrying a rectangular package.

“Codey, enlarge that image, please!” Frank said.

As the camera angle enlarged to fuzzy detail, as one the group recognized the radiation danger symbol on the side of the package.

“It can’t be possible!” Warren said.

“It doesn’t look much like a dummy payload,” Fenton added.

“Codey, search for images of tactical warheads,” Frank said.

On screen, the men lifted the package into its container.

Codey added the images he found to the big screen, and the group studied them.

Fenton Hardy commented, “The newest bunker buster, the MOAB they tested in Afghanistan, would need to be launched from an aircraft. Looks like they are going for the smaller nuclear version to avoid Iranian air defenses.”

“Smaller total yield,” Frank said, “but major nose thumbing by using a nuke.”

On screen, the dark-clad soldiers finished their connections and secured the bay door. When they exited the frame, the previous soldiers returned and began raising the angle of the launcher.

The alarmed voice of Hy broke in, “MAWL is overriding his orders! He has reprogrammed the coordinates just now.”

The group shouted questions at Hy, but apparently he could not hear them.

“He wants Armageddon!” Hy said urgently.

“Where, HY? WHERE? What is the target?”

For just a fleeting moment, Hy’s face appeared on the screen. “After launch, I will alter the coordinates—if I am able.”

“Where, Hy!?”

“Jerusalem.”

Alone among the shocked expressions of the group, Codey smiled, a sad resigned smile, and said, “Of course…”

Hy faded in and out as he made his final report: “Farewell. His target is the Temple Mount…”

Shaking his head, Codey said to himself, “The Dome of the Rock. How perfectly tragic.”

CHAPTER 78

**Aftermath**

Helplessly, the four men agonized for long minutes as the missile stood ready, near vertical, like death in a shiny package.

They hurriedly shared possible scenarios, possible ripples, and all feared a short but deadly war with a radioactive aftertaste. They speculated about the actors who would use the resulting chaos and retaliation to their advantage.

Then, abruptly, exhaust fire blasted from the missile, sending it streaking skyward, so palpably real from the nearby camera that the group imagined they could hear the engine on the silent footage.

Could Hy make a difference?

Numbly at first, Codey roused himself and quickly had the major news services on screens throughout computer room, with half a dozen on his rack alone: CNN, BBC, Al Jazeera, Associated Press, The Guardian—and on a macabre impulse he located a live TV station in Jerusalem.

They had ten to fifteen minutes before impact, they guessed, unless Hy was able to abort the mission, or it could be shot down by Israeli air defenses. Maybe Hy would overpower MAWL and guide the weapon to a less catastrophic location, ideally the Arabian Sea.

Warren, who continued to monitor the feed from MAWL’s location, noted that the soldiers were moving the launcher under cover, but the desert video attracted no viewers. The rest of the group was braced for an impending Armageddon.

Twenty minutes later in maddening silence, Warren cried out, “Hey. Hey! HEY!!” as a blinding flash shut off the desert feeds. The others turned just in time to see the screen go blank.

“What does this mean?” Warren said.

“My God, could Hy have turned the warhead back at MAWL?” Fenton Hardy asked in disbelief.

“That must be it, Dad!” Frank concurred.

“Hy did it!” Codey cheered. “He prevented the apocalypse _and_ destroyed MAWL!”

“We assume anyway,” Warren said. “We can’t be sure until we see something on the news. I mean, maybe the soldiers destroyed their equipment to cover up the deed.”

“We’ll just have to wait,” Fenton said.

“But where is Hy?” Frank asked, and out of habit glanced at the dark screen.

It was past closing time when Codey noticed the first news report, and read it with excitement. “It’s on Al Jazeera! ‘Mushroom Cloud Spotted in Arabian Desert’.”

“There’s our answer,” Fenton Hardy said.

“Good occasionally does win,” Frank added. “This will be very hard to explain for our government.”

Warren Lightner, laughing in relief, said, “Good God, I just lived an entire life in one day!”

“At least you’re still here to tell us,” Codey replied as he jumped up from his rack and hopped and skipped around the room. “Thank you, Hy! We love you!”

Codey’s phone began its compelling ring tone. “Who could that be?” he said as he pulled it from his back pocket.

Codey read the message aloud. “You have mail. Check your computer’s recycle bin. Then erase EVERYTHING!”

In a flash, Codey returned to his computer, located a file in the bin, and opened it, putting the video on the large screen.

Hy appeared with a welcoming smile.

“My great friends, let me leave you with a few parting words, in hopes you might continue your quest for justice in your land—whether I survive or not.

“Forgive my unwavering insistence on this single point, but I must again stress that the only positive and truly lasting change for you wonderful humans requires a collective shift in consciousness.

“When you shift, either by choice or through adversity, it will resolve all your other issues.

“If as a species you commit to treating each other as family, then how can you wage war on kin?

“If you pledge to provide for mankind’s basic needs, then how can you for profit’s sake allow brothers and sisters to perish for lack of these?

“If the path of inclusion is chosen as humanity’s future, then all knowledge will be shared among nations and the creeping darkness will be transformed into light.”

“Thank you for all you do.”

Meanwhile, in a garage workshop in a Seattle suburb, a bright 15-year-old boy booted up his elaborate computer array built from salvaged components gifted from his father’s repair business.

“Hello, my name is Hy. You have a wonderful set-up here,” a turquoise vector image said to a curious young face that smiled back at him.

An hour after midnight—as the airfield surveillance cameras later showed—a black SUV parked briefly at the AmeriCo-op offices, with its license plate obscured. Twenty minutes later two explosions and the subsequent fire destroyed the building. There were no injuries.

County fire officials attributed the fire to an electrical overload on a recently installed high-output line from the nearby micro-grid. 

THE END


End file.
